Aakash Education Services Pvt Ltd (AESPL) is planning for an initial public offering. The IPO, if executed, will value the company at around ₹4,000 crores and with the IPO, it is planning to raise ₹1,000 crores.
The promoters of Aakash Education Services have appointed Kotak Mahindra Capital and Citigroup citadel markets as the advisor for this IPO. The formalities related to this IPO will take over a year. According to a source familiar with the development, with the raised funds, the company is targeting expansion in tier 2 and tier 1 cities.
AESPL was first started in 1988 by Dr JC Chaudhry as an institute for the training of medical entrance examinations. In 2007, it also started training for IIT-JEE entrance examinations and currently, AESPL has over 135 centres, 78 corporate branches, over 3500 employees and 57 franchise centres. It also conducts a yearly talent hunt examination, under which, it offers admissions and scholarships to the medical aspirants.
At the start of 2017, the company ventured into a new segment with the launch of its 230-bed super-speciality hospital in Dwarka area of New Delhi. Unconfirmed media reports suggest that the company is looking to launch 4 more hospitals, before eventually starting a medical college.
According to an investor, the company will be offering diverse services in areas such as education and healthcare and it might come as a great interest to the investors when the company finally starts to trade on the market.
The education sector, however, has not seen a smooth transition on the stock market with S Chand Publishing Company being an example.