CI Capital has priced the IPO of multi-brand higher education player Taaleem Management Services at EGP 5.75 per share, roughly the midpoint of the EGP 5.48-6.02 range announced in the prospectus last week amid strong investor demand.

The offering to institutional shareholders was 2.34x oversubscribed, and pricing values the offering at EGP 4.2 bn, Taaleem said in an announcement (pdf). Almost 340 mn shares are earmarked for institutional buyers, equivalent to a 46.55% stake in the company and roughly 95% of the 49% stake Taaleem is listing on the EGX.

Taaleem’s base of institutional investors will be nicely diversified by geography: “In spite of the significant headwinds facing the market recently, the institutional tranche of Taaleem’s offering generated very strong interest from quality investors from the GCC, Europe, South Africa and Egypt, among others,” CI Capital Investment Bank CEO Hesham Gohar told us. Gohar is also chairman of Taaleem. “Demand was predominantly driven by institutional investors, which represent the vast majority of the order book. I look forward to a successful retail offering and to the first day of trading on the EGX on 7 April.”

Retail investors have until Thursday to bid for the 17.89 mn shares up for grabs in the public offering, which kicked off on Sunday. A 2.4% stake in the company is being made available to retail traders, representing 5% of the shares being listed on the exchange. Subscribers should pay 25% of the shares they wish to purchase upfront to a licensed brokerage company, the company said.

Who are the sellers? Taaleem hasn’t identified who is offering how much in the secondary sale, in which the selling shareholder is an SPV named Sphinx Obelisk, but key players in building Taaleem included founder Seddik Afifi, Ahmed Badreldin’s RMBV, and CI Capital.

TAALEEM IN NUMBERS:

• Taaleem is a multi-brand player with Nahda University in Beni Suef (where it has two campuses) as its largest brand. Nahda’s capacity of 11k students (6.3k enrolled now) makes it the largest private university in Upper Egypt.
• Launching Badya University in West Cairo with a potential capacity of 9.2k students.
• Tight focus on what the job market wants in graduates from faculties, including computer science and engineering, business and marketing.
• Heavy emphasis on health sciences, including medicine, pharma, dentistry and physiotherapy, including through a partnership with the internationally ranked Medical University of Vienna.
• Operating revenue CAGR of 28% between FY2017-2018 and FY2019-2020, with operating revenue of EGP 450 mn in FY2019-2020.
• Adjusted EBITDA of EGP 240 mn in the same year, good for a CAGR of 37%.
• Net profit of EGP 144 mn in FY2019-2020, up from the EGP 110 mn the previous year and EGP 62 mn in FY2017-2018.

Ticker: The company’s shares will be on the EGX under the ticker TALM.

Advisors: CI Capital, also a shareholder in Taaleem, is running the sale and serving as the bookrunner. MHR & Partners in association with White & Case are the counsel for CI Capital, while Matouk Bassiouny & Hennawy are domestic counsel to Taaleem. PwC acts as an auditor for the transaction, and BDO is the independent financial advisor.