Wey Education Plc (LON:WEY) announced today that it has now completed the documentation contemplated in its announcement of 23 August 2018 relating to its expansion in Nigeria. We caught up with Executive Chairman David Massie to talk about this and more in the following interview.
Nigeria
A new subsidiary company, Wey Education Nigeria Limited (“WNL”) has been incorporated in Nigeria.
WNL has entered into a technical agreement with City of Knowledge Academy (“CKA”) a co-educational secondary boarding school in Ogun state, Nigeria, whereby CKA will provide various services to WNL including provision of the relevant education licenses to enable WNL to operate as an online educational establishment in Nigeria. CKA has also agreed to establish a learning centre at its boarding school.
In the initial stages WNL will concentrate on offering the traditional British curriculum offered by Wey to Nigerian students both for home study and also through a WNL learning centre to be opened in Lagos. Over the next few months the parties will also co-operate to convert all CKA’s existing Nigerian curriculum onto Wey’s learning platform with a view to offering such online within Nigeria and overseas during 2019.
CKA will receive a commission fee of 5% of WNL’s turnover for its services.
CKA is owned by Mrs Mosun Belo-Olusoga, a well-known business woman in Nigeria with a banking career spanning three decades. She currently serves as the chairman of Access Bank Plc which is the fourth largest bank in Nigeria, ranked on balance sheet size, with total assets of USD 12 billion and a market capitalisation of over USD 800 million. Access Bank has over 9,000 employees, six million customers and three hundred branches, including a branch in London. In addition, Mrs Belo-Olusoga currently sits on the boards of Premium Pension Limited, a licensed pension fund administrator, regulated by the National Pension Commission in Nigeria with assets under management of circa USD 1.5 billion.
It is Mrs Belo-Olusoga intention to subscribe for 20% of the enlarged capital of WNL at par in due course. A further announcement will be made when appropriate.
Separately WNL has entered into an operation and services agreement with Sage Grey Limited, a financial services company in Nigeria for the establishment of Wey Marketing Limited (“WML”). WML will be wholly owned by Sage Grey and has been sub-contracted by WNL to provide a range of operations and marketing services to WNL in Nigeria including collection of tuition fees. WML will be paid a performance related commission for its services.
Through the agreements with CKA and Sage Grey, WNL will need very limited personnel in Nigeria and can concentrate on education provision while delegating the services required in Nigeria to local firms.
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