Flip back 10 years and investors would have been aghast to see any assets associated with private education being written down in value.
Valuations are now chalk to the cheese of a decade ago, which probably helped to persuade the Jannie Mouton Foundation to whisk the Curro private schools business off the market at a price less than a quarter of the group’s highs of 2017/2018.
Trematon Capital has written down the value of its investment in private schools business Generation to R191m at the end of February — a further crimp from the already reduced R200m valuation set at the end of August last year. At the end of February 2025, Generation still carried a value of R273m, so it’s been a fairly steep and rapid deterioration.
The sprawling Generations campuses certainly offer scope for those with ambitious learning curves
The reduced value now represents a critical test for Trematon’s latest stated NAV because Generation has been slated for sale (to private equity players, according to market murmurs). After Trematon recently proposed the sale of its stake in Club Mykonos Langebaan for less than its stated value, shareholders might be seriously pondering the chances of it realising full price on Generation.
One of the reasons the value was written down is that initial efforts to market the asset did not see buyers pencil in prices that matched the carrying value in Trematon’s accounts.
The group, however, stressed that Generation had been valued by a professional independent external valuer and is now carried at the estimated realisable fair market value. For the record, interim turnover was R113m and profits came in at R3m.
Perhaps more intriguing will be the strategic intentions of a buyer. The sprawling Generation campuses certainly offer scope for those with ambitious learning curves.
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