by winston » Mon Feb 04, 2013 9:59 am
not vested
Raffles Education rises as OEL heads for IPO
A surge of interest in impending new listee Overseas Education Ltd (OEL) has also lifted the stock of another listed education player, Raffles Education.
Raffles Education started stirring last week, gaining some 10 per cent to hit a four-month high before the close of Friday trading, when it edged up 2.5 cents to 38.5 cents.
All this comes ahead of the Thursday listing of private foreign education player Overseas Education, whose 125 million shares are being offered at 48 cents apiece, translating into a price-earning multiple of 6.6 times. It has an NTA of 27.8 cents, total equity of $54.7 million and a return on equity of 35.4 per cent.
Raffles Education, on the other hand, has had a tough few years recently and posted a loss of some $85 million for the year to end-June 2012, largely due to write-offs in Vietnam and China.
This compares with a profit of $51.3 million in the previous year. But it completed a one-for-five rights issue in October last year at 14 cents per share, boosting its new NAV 51 cents following the issue.
The company has been on a turnaround path, boosting its profit for Q1 to end-September 2012 to $5.4 million on revenue of $32.8 million. It has also been expanding its ex-China footprint aggressively over the past two years. It bought new campus space at Merchant Square for $65 million in January 2011, and through its 80 per cent owned Raffles Iskandar, bought a 2.8 million-sq-ft property for RM90 million (S$36 million) to house its new Raffles University Iskandar and American school campuses there.
In India, it is boosting its presence via its Raffles Millenium University at Greater Noida in New Delhi. Meanwhile, it is also growing its Oriental University City in Beijing after hiving off some assets there. Schools are also planned for Medan and Batam.
Some within the market reckon that, as the largest private education group in the Asia-Pacific with 22,000 students in 33 colleges in 30 cities across 13 countries, Raffles Education will remain on the radar screens of investors.
Source: AmFraser
It's all about "how much you made when you were right" & "how little you lost when you were wrong"