Aksorn Education plans IPO on SET soon

Proceeds from the IPO will be used to finance the company’s organic and takeover growth plans, said chief executive Tawan Dheva-aksorn.

"We will become one of the largest publicly listed media companies on the local bourse," he said.

Tawan said Aksorn was the largest education-media company in Thailand. It earns 60 per cent of its revenue from selling textbooks to schools, from the kindergarten to high-school levels. The balance comes from educational solutions, a business that is growing even faster than its traditional textbook business.

"Our sales have never dropped. We are resilient to economic cycles," he said.

Currently run by third-generation family members, the company was known as Aksorn Charoen Tat Group until it conducted a reorganisation to establish Aksorn Education as the parent firm last year. Tawan said the group’s textbook business was run under a subsidiary, Aksorn Charoen Tat, which grew by more than 10 per cent last year.

Established in 1935, Aksorn Charoen Tat has gained a reputation as a publisher of textbooks to which most Thai students are accustomed. It claims a 40-per-cent share of the Thai kindergarten-to-high-school textbook market at present.

Aksorn Education Group made nearly Bt400 million in net profit on total revenue of Bt2.5 billion last year. Never registering a yearly sales decline or making a loss, Tawan said the group had achieved more than 10-per-cent annual sales growth and more than 20-per-cent annual profit growth during the past three years.

Finansa Securities is the financial adviser of Aksorn Education, which will be transformed into a public company next month. After the IPO, the Dheva-aksorn family will reduce their shareholding in Aksorn from 100 per cent at present to 74 per cent. All IPO shares will be newly issued stocks, since the family will not sell their shares, he said.

Tawan said Aksorn wanted to list on the stock market because it needed a significant sum to finance its investment in a new "learning-solutions ecosystem". Besides organic growth, Aksorn is looking at acquiring other companies involved in educational content that possess high growth potential and have a sizeable business worth at least Bt300 million, he said.

"Our strong point is that we are the largest education-media company in the country. And we think that if Thailand wants to grow its economy, it will need to invest more in human capital," Tawan said.

The group has total liabilities of Bt2.4 billion, about Bt400 million of which are long-term bank loans, and the balance are short-term debts such as working capital and accounts receivable.