Aptech eyes buyouts to push growth in career education business

The career education company in Jan 2010 acquired Maya Academy of Advanced Cinematics for Rs 76 crore

Mumbai-based education company, Aptech Limited, is open to acquisition opportunities that are adjunct to career education, according to chief executive officer and managing director Ninad Karpe.

“As of March 2013, we have close to Rs 100 crore lying in the bank. We are looking at two parameters – career education and global flavour. We, however, have not got any opportunity that is compelling enough,” he told Business Standard.

The 26-year-old company, which metamorphasised itself from being a computer education firm to a career education company, had in January 2010, acquired Maya Academy of Advanced Cinematics (MAAC) for Rs 76 crore.

Aptech currently offers career education, multimedia education (through Arena and MAAC), hardware networking, aviation management, travel and tourism, and English language training under its retail business unit. At present, it garners 80 per cent of its revenues from retail and the remaining from enterprise business, with the largest component of this being computer-based testing and assessment.

Stating that the company was present in 40 countries, with a stronghold in Vietnam, Nigeria, West Asia, Poland, Afghanistan, and China through a joint venture, Karpe said Aptech had set a target to generate 50 per cent of its retail business from outside of India by next year.

“We are entering the African market aggressively and have signed up in Rwanda and Ghana recently.

We should be in 15-20 countries in that continent, from the present six, within the next two to three years,” he said.