UAE's GEMS and Saudi Arabia's Hassana complete Ma’arif Education acquisition

The latest deal gives the Dubai-based education provider a solid footprint in the biggest GCC market

A Gems Modern Academy school. The Dubai-based company was the subject of the region's biggest private equity deal last year, as CVC Capital took a 30 per cent stake in a $1bn buyout. Pawan Singh / TheShow more

GEMS Education, the UAE-based schools operator, has completed the acquisition of Saudi Arabia's largest private school group Ma’arif Education through a joint venture with Hassana Investment.

The companies did not disclose the value of the deal in a joint statement issued on Monday.

"We are confident that combining the experience, reputation and track record of Ma’arif and GEMS Education will ensure that our schools remain leaders in academic excellence and the development of our students," said Saad Alfadly, chairman of the joint venture company GEMS Education KSA.

In May, Dubai-based GEMS Education said it acquired Saudi Arabia's Ma'arif Education, expanding its footprint in the Arab world's largest economy and most populous country in the GCC. As part of a joint venture agreement with Hassana Investment Company, the investment arm of Saudi Arabia’s General Organisation for Social Insurance (GOSI), GEMS bought Ma’arif Education Group, which runs national and international schools across the kingdom with more than 22,000 students enrolled.

“We are excited about this partnership, as it is unprecedented in the region, to contribute to raising the quality of education within the kingdom, and raise the share of Ma’arif for Education in the private education sector in the kingdom,"  said Mohamed Al Arfaj, chief executive of Ma'arif Education.

The GEMS venture with Hassana aims to invest up to $800 million (Dh2.93 billion) over the next decade to acquire and develop more than 50 schools that will educate more than 100,000 students across the country.

The number of students in Saudi Arabia is forecast to grow at an annual rate of 3.5 per cent to 11 million by 2020 from an estimated 9.2 million in 2015, according to a 2016 report from Dubai-based investment bank Alpen Capital.

GEMS Education, which owns and operates 49 schools in the Arabian Gulf, said in July that a consortium led by private equity firm CVC Capital Partners agreed to acquire a 30 per cent stake in the company from existing shareholders.

Standard & Poor’s Global Ratings assigned Dubai's GEMS Education a preliminary "B" rating with a stable outlook based on good-cash flow visibility, its large-scale operations and profitability above that of other school operators.