The Directors of Arowana International Limited (ASX: AWN) are pleased to announce that its education platform, EdventureCo, has completed a transaction to acquire all the issued share capital of DDLS Australia Pty Ltd (DDLS) from ACTE Pty Ltd.

DDLS is Australia’s largest information and communications technology training business and is a highly regarded national brand that has been operating for over 25 years.

With six campuses across every mainland state of Australia and the ACT, DDLS possesses a blue-chip client base of governments and corporates including the Department of Defence, Australian Federal Police, CSIRO, Australian Taxation Office, Telstra, ANZ Bank, Commonwealth Bank and Boeing. The business delivers vendor- and industry-certified courses for Microsoft, Cisco, Citrix, CompTIA, PMI, VMware, and many others, with 100% of its revenue being fees for service.

DDLS has a historic three-year average revenue of $37.1m, EBITDA of $2.0m and EBIT of $1.3m. Pursuant to the transaction documentation, AWN has agreed to purchase all the issued share capital in DDLS for a net purchase price of $4.7m, payable in tranches on or before 30 June 2018, funded from existing financial capacity. The transaction documentation contains customary warranties, limitations, and restraints for a transaction of this nature. The acquisition of DDLS is part of AWN’s strategy to build an education group that is run in accordance with our modus operandi and tempo. It sees the formation of a new education platform, EdventureCo, that will include Everthought Education, AWN’s existing building and construction training business, and DDLS.

The focus of the AWN and EdventureCo team is now to onboard and integrate DDLS with EdventureCo, underpinned by the introduction of an operating platform comprising common enterprise systems, processes, and protocols as appropriate, and to take advantage of the significant scope for operational engineering and optimisation.

Read below for further details of AWN’s education strategy and the DDLS acquisition that are set out in the presentation.