Private ‘universities’ are raking in the cash in South Africa

Private education giant STADIO has informed shareholders that its headline earnings per share are expected to skyrocket when it presents its financial results for 2025 on 17 March. 

STADIO expects its headline earnings per share to be between 17.5% and 27.7% higher year-on-year. Earnings per share are expected to rise by a similar percentage. 

The company’s preferred financial metric is core earnings per share, as this strips out non-recurring items that might distort the financial results. Stadio expects this to rise by between 17.1% and 27.3%. 

This was revealed by the company in a trading statement released on the JSE’s news service on 5 February. 

STADIO’s trading statement followed from that of its chief competitor, ADvTECH, who also expects a surge in earnings.

The company, which owns Crawford and Emeris, expects its basic headline earnings per share to rise by between 14% and 19% for the year ended 31 December 2025.

STADIO is a South African-based company that provides private higher education, including an array of accredited qualifications via contact, distance and blended learning.

It started as a subsidiary of Curro, which has provided pre-school and school-based education since 1998. Curro is Africa’s largest independent school group and was listed on the JSE in 2011.

In 2013, Curro acquired Embury, a registered private higher education institution offering accredited teacher-education qualifications. 

This was Curro’s first acquisition in the post-school education environment. In 2017, Curro unbundled its interest in STADIO and listed STADIO Holdings on the JSE in October that year. 

The intention was to create a separate listed business focusing on higher education with a strong management team and a dedicated anchor shareholder – PSG Alpha Investments – to become the leader in the higher education market in South Africa.

To achieve this goal, STADIO has since acquired further registered higher education institutions, namely AFDA, Milpark Education, LISOF, Prestige Academy and Southern Business School, and the business of CA Connect. 

AFDA and Milpark Education operate independently, and the other institutions were consolidated with STADIO to form one STADIO Higher Education institution.

Since striking out on its own, STADIO has made significant strides in becoming a higher education powerhouse in South Africa, taking on large public universities that have been around for decades.

The latest data available shows that, from 30 June 2020 to 30 June 2025, Stadio’s student population increased from 31,414 to 50,878, a 61.96% increase.

For context, in 2023, UP reported having around 56,000 students, UCT was home to 29,427 students, and SU had a total headcount of 32,806.