Tanco holding firm takes full control of iAcademy

Tanco family-led STI Education Systems Holdings Inc. has acquired full control of affiliate educational institution iAcademy, which offers college and senior high school courses.

A 100-percent stake in iAcademy was bought from STI Holdings’ subsidiary STI Education Services Group Inc. (STI ESG) for P113.5 million, STI Holdings disclosed to the Philippine Stock Exchange Tuesday.

STI, the holding company within the Tanco group that drives investment in the education business,  said it would focus on expanding the operations of iAcademy to “target specialized information technology fields in multimedia arts and animation as well as the offer of transnational education.”

The company paid the full amount of the purchase price on Sept. 27, the disclosure said.

iAcademy started in 2002 with an initial class of 72 students. At the beginning of school year 2015-16, iAcademy had 994 students. Its campus is located in Makati City. The school prides itself in being the first Wacom-authorized training partner in the Philippines as well as being the first college in the Asean region to be appointed as an IBM Center of Excellence.

Aside from bringing in industry professionals to teach at iAcademy, the school runs one of the most intensive internship program in the country today. Under this program, interns work full-time in partner companies for at least 960 hours, resulting in a 96-percent job placement rate within the first six months after graduation.

Through STI ESG, the STI group has a total of 77 schools nationwide, broken down into 66 STI-branded colleges and 11 STI branded education centers. Of these, STI ESG wholly owns 32 college campuses and four education centers while franchisees operate 34 college campuses and seven education centers.

Aside from iAcademy, STI ESG operates another school that is not branded as STI: De los Santos STI College, a health science and nursing school.