Phinma seals St. Jude Dasmariñas takeover

The education arm of conglomerate Phinma Corp. has completed its takeover of St. Jude College (SJC) Dasmariñas Cavite Inc., adding 3,000 students to its network and marking its entry into the Cavite market.

In a stock exchange filing on Wednesday, Phinma said its subsidiary, Phinma Education Holdings Inc., had finalized the deal after shelling out P344 million to acquire the land and buildings of SJC and pay debt. This represents the second phase of its takeover.

The first phase was completed in December when Phinma Education bought a controlling stake in SJC Dasmariñas for P85 million. The transaction involved 30,750 shares for P2,764.23 each, representing a 94.62 percent shareholding.

READ: Phinma buys St. Jude Dasmariñas

Phinma Education now has 10 schools in its Philippine network and 12 schools overall. It also owns SJC Manila and SJC Quezon City.

The company’s takeover of SJC Dasma, which offers nursing, psychology, hospitality management and computer science programs, is its first acquisition after private equity firm KKR had made an investment into Phinma Education.

In October 2024, KKR completed an initial investment of P2.52 billion into Phinma Education to bankroll the latter’s expansion programs.

The initial remittance represented 70.22 percent of KKR’s P3.59-billion total investment to buy new shares.

Parent firm Phinma also raised P1 billion from its stock rights offering last month to expand its hospitality, real estate, energy and construction businesses.

Phinma’s earnings in the first nine months of the year plunged by 84.5 percent to P122.73 million on lower selling prices and higher costs. Revenues rose by 9.7 percent to P17 billion.

Phinma Education contributed P4.71 billion to the group’s revenues, up by 19 percent, as the number of enrollees increased by more than a tenth to 163,854 students. —Meg J. Adonis