Tanco group set to open 10 more campuses in 3 years

The STI Group of businessman Eusebio Tanco plans to open 10 new campuses to widen its educational network across the country in the next two to three years.

It intends to use the proceeds from an upcoming share sale to finance the expansion.

Tanco told reporters that seven of the 10 new sites would be in Luzon, specifically in Caloocan, Cubao, Ortigas-Cainta, Lucena, Calamba, Las Piñas and Quezon City.

The three remaining sites will be in the Visayas and Mindanao, specifically Cebu, Davao and Cagayan de Oro.

Two of the three campuses will be for the Philippine Women’s University while the rest for STI.

Tanco said the medium-term expansion would allow the group to serve about 100,000 students.

STI, which has been in the education business for 29 years, has 67,361 students for the 2012-2013 academic year.

The Tanco-led education group, through holding firm STI Holdings Inc., plans to raise as much as P4.5 billion from a follow-on shares offering. Its proposition is being a pure education play as it maintains and operates the Philippines’ largest private for-profit network of educational institutions.—Doris C. Dumlao