Cape Town based Investment Company; Trematon Capital Investments appears to be gaining traction with its unexpected venture into the burgeoning private school market.
The company, which is best known as a property investment company with a key asset in Club Mykonos Langebaan, holds a 75% stake in Generation Education, a Montessori-based private education venture.
Trematon has already overseen the construction of Generation Education’s first school in Sunningdale on the West Coast for R18m. Trematon describes the school as a state-of-the-art school offering a high standard of education to children aged six months to 12 years.
Trematon CEO Arnold Shapiro reported that initial demand had exceeded expectations and that plans were under way to increase the capacity of the school. He added that initial indications were that the model employed by Generation Education is viable and Trematon was currently focusing on expanding its private school offering.
Trematon, which is fortunate to be able to call on significant real estate expertise, is in the process of looking at various school sites and projects to expand the Generation business. On paper, it seems possible to set-up generation schools on housing estates or in partnership with real estate developers which offers a great degree of developmental flexibility.
Durbanville-based private education specialist Curro Holdings has already confirmed the appetite for an affordable private school offering. Curro has eight schools in operation in the Western Cape – mostly away from traditional school belts in areas like Brackenfell, Century City, Durbanville, Hermanus, Langebaan, Mossel Bay, Sitari and Pinehurst.
It’s early days for Trematon’s Generation, but there appears to be scope for the school offering to find enough under-serviced nodes to build a private school offering with sufficient scale to generate sustainable profits.
In Trematon’s financial results to end February, Generation had only been in operation for two months. But it had already chipped in R2, 3m in revenue – which, based on a back of cigarette box calculation, makes for a single school that is capable of generating more than R30m in annual revenues without incurring the costs associated of running a large school.
