Essel to invest Rs.500 crore on education business
By IANSWednesday, April 7, 2010
CHENNAI - Media major Essel group is planning to invest Rs.500 crore over the next seven years in the education sector, promoting pre-schools, schools and university, group chairman Subhash Chandra said Thursday.
“Over the next seven years the group will be investing around Rs.500 crore in the field of education. Already we have invested around Rs.100 crore,” Chandra told reporters here.
The group’s education vertical, Zee Learn, now a division of ETC Networks, will become an independent company after a restructuring.
A meeting of ETC Networks’ shareholders has been called April 19.
About plans for expanding the Zee School chain, Sumeet Mehta, CEO, Zee Learn, said: “The target is to have 300 schools by 2015 through a mix of owned schools (100) as well as franchisee-owned and managed schools (200).”
Two channels owned by ETC Networks - ETC Hindi and ETC Punjabi- will be hived off and made part of Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd.
With just the education division, ETC Networks will be renamed as Zee Learn Ltd.
According to Chandra, ETC Networks will be closing 2009-10 with a turnover of around Rs.100 crore up from Rs.66 crore earned the previous year.
Asked about the risks of having a franchisee model for schools where the former will be concerned more on cutting costs, Nitya Ramaswami, head, child development and academics, said: “We will be grading the schools.”
