The global education system was not designed to deal with extended shutdowns like those imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Teachers, administrators, students, and parents have worked hard to keep learning alive. While the rapid transition many have achieved from face-to-face to an online environment is admirable, the reality is that these efforts are not likely to provide the quality of education that’s delivered in the classroom.
In this Education Data & Insights presentation, we look at the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic across multiple sectors of the education industry. From K-12 to higher education and corporate learning, the education sector has never had to confront a challenge as wide and deep as that posed by the health crisis’s effects.
As some countries start to ease lockdowns and a sense of normalcy starts to return, it will be intriguing to see which short-term changes become part of the longer-term landscape.
Click here to view the presentation
This month marks 10 years since Arowana first invested in education.
Our initial focus was on vocational education and training (VET). VET encompasses the cohort of students who do not pursue an academic-based higher education degree following completion of compulsory schooling. Instead, these students pursue more vocationally-focussed education commonly associated with trades and technical training. This is the world of accredited training, certificates, diplomas, TAFE, and registered training organisations (RTOs).
Of late however, we have expanded our focus to include professional education and training. This covers students who are already in the workforce but are seeking to reskill and/or upskill. This sector is about corporate training, short courses, certifications, and bootcamps.
Together, we call these vocational and professional education and training (VPET), and we have executed our investments in VPET through our education platform, EdventureCo.
As we have formed EdventureCo and worked closely with its leadership, we have gained a degree of insight into the VPET industry that we now wish to share through regular releases of data and insights. We hope that these snapshots provide a wider audience with a better understanding of our investment thesis, the VPET landscape and what the future may hold, particularly in a post-COVID-19 world.
To start things off, we have looked at some data and insights related to human capital. We focussed on two reports: one from Deloitte and the other from Citigroup. Both present data gathered pre-COVID-19, but in doing so, provide a base case that will be interesting to compare and contrast with future research. Notwithstanding the timing, their findings remain relevant.
We have started with human capital because this is where we think private education businesses should be focussed. Ultimately, their students enrol seeking some form of employment outcome, whether it is as a new career entrant seeking their first full-time job or an experienced worker seeking to reskill or upskill.
Human capital is also where the greatest disruption is being and will continue to be felt from the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Evolving work demands and skills requirements are creating an enormous demand for new skills and capabilities. Rapid and ongoing changes in the nature of work is modifying the relationship between learning and work, making them more integrated. Consequently, employees see education less as a phase of life and more as a lifelong endeavour, and are willing to participate even if they must pay for it. We hope you gain some new insights from this first release and look forward to sharing our further thoughts with you in the future.
Click here to view the presentation
Arowana Impact Capital, the impact asset management arm of the Arowana group, is honoured to have signed a partnership agreement with Grameen in the Philippines, Grameen Pilipinas. The agreement has been facilitated by Dana Asia and will commence this month with the procurement and delivery of emergency food relief to families badly affected by COVID-19 lockdowns.
Arowana’s Founder and Executive Chairman, Kevin Chin, commented: “We have followed the work of Muhammad Yunus and Grameen for over two decades and are delighted to now be able to partner with their Philippine microfinance arm in delivering sustainable impact to communities throughout the country. We are very mindful that there are a lot of families that have been pulled below the poverty line as a result of being unable to work or operate their SME businesses due to the COVID-19 lockdowns. The emergency relief initiatives are a first step in ultimately being able to help these families. The partnership is also further affirmation of our commitment to the Philippines as a key market for Arowana.”
We are excited to announce today that our London team is growing and moving into a new home at the Baltic Exchange.
We look forward to welcoming you at our new space...just as soon as we possibly can!
y can!
COVID-19 has changed the business landscape globally. As measures of inter-country lockdowns, local border closures, self-isolation, and social distancing and are announced, businesses and industries are bracing for the full impact to unfold. Amongst the measures taken to mitigate the effects of COVID-19, governments across the world have announced stimulus packages to counteract the negative economic impact on business and ensure that businesses of all sizes can continue to operate and continue to employ.
The list is a work in progress, continually evolving as more governments announce assistance packages. The list should be used as a guideline, and any business seeking to rely on the information should first review the official announcements and discuss the initiatives with their advisers.
Group EBITDA up materially to $3.6M for the period
Today, Arowana International (AWN.AX, the Group) announced record half-year group revenues. The results were bolstered by the exceptional results for VivoPower International (VivoPower) that were announced yesterday. The Group grew statutory revenues by 78% versus PoP to A$47.0m, driven by record results from VivoPower’s Aevitas businesses in Australia.
The period also marked the commencement of the strategic transformation of EdventureCo, through various initiatives. The most recent of which was the launch of the first Philippines campus for DDLS Australia Pty Ltd (DDLS) under its joint venture with Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Inc. (PSE:AEV). The campus launch follows months of above-budget revenues of performance in the Philippine market. DDLS is the largest Corporate IT training provider in Australia and is the largest of the businesses in the EdventureCo portfolio.
As part of its strategy to develop higher margin revenue streams, EdventureCo also launched the Australian Institute of ICT with an online offering in cybersecurity, a 0% unemployment industry. The course, which is endorsed by a panel of global industry experts and includes a hiring programme for graduates is designed to take students with no ICT background to three internationally recognised cybersecurity certifications in less than six months.
Highlights for the six months ended December 31, 2019:
Kevin Chin, Arowana CEO, commented: “The results evidence the transformation of VivoPower into a growth business, primarily due to the strong performance and outlook of the Aevitas business unit in Australia. We have also commenced our strategic transformation of EdventureCo, with a focus on transitioning the business to higher quality and higher margin revenue streams. To this extent, significant investment has been made to open the first DDLS campus in the Philippines which has started generating above-budget revenues. In addition, the Australian Institute of ICT has been launched to prepare students to meet the growing and unmet demand for talent in cybersecurity, web development, and data science.”
VivoPower Reports Unaudited Financial Results For the Six Months Ended December 31, 2019
VivoPower comprises one of the largest solar project portfolios in the United States, solar development projects in Australia as well as a fast growing Australian critical power services group, Aevitas (which comprises two businesses, J.A. Martin and Kenshaw). The VivoPower business has not been without challenges, which we have documented in the past, read more on that, here.
The exceptional turnaround was fuelled by Aevitas, the critical power services group that was once considered an “unfixable write off” by a number of former stakeholders. In fact a former chairman strongly advocated to place the group into voluntary administration a few years ago. However, following a strategy transformation initiated by Arowana and with focussed execution, especially in the last 12 months, Aevitas is becoming another #hyperturnaround out of the Arowana stable of companies. This unfixable writeoff has now completed its turnaround phase and is experiencing a new set of challenges, associated with hypergrowth businesses.
However, as Arowana parachuted in to support the management team, together we were able to execute on this #hyperturnaround, and this period, the VivoPower group delivered the following key results:
VivoPower Australia also contributed to the result by successfully monetising the Sun Connect solar portfolio, comprised of 53 operating solar projects, representing a 2.0x multiple on invested capital and an unlevered IRR of 20.1% before tax.
The Aevitas group is now focused on building its forward order book and growing its business development pipeline across a range of new industry sectors with significant growth tailwinds, including solar, data centres, and healthcare to further drive sustainable growth.
VivoPower is also executing on its strategy to drive value maximisation in relation to its U.S. solar project portfolio with a view to monetization. This includes discussions with the joint venture partner to enable VivoPower to take control of the joint venture.
Kevin Chin, Arowana CEO and VivoPower’s Chairman, stated: “We have had to overcome a myriad of challenges for VivoPower since its IPO. The focus, dedication and resilience of the leadership team over the past 12 months has been key to the strong turnaround and growth of VivoPower, particularly in Australia. Our objective now is to build on the base that we have created and continue to scale up the business in a sustainable and profitable manner. In addition, we remain very focused on driving value creation for our US solar portfolio with a view to maximising proceeds from monetisation. This will then pave the way to consideration of a strategic pivot at the appropriate time, as previously flagged.”
Read the full VivoPower story here.
Read the press release here.
The Directors of Arowana International Limited (AWN) are pleased to announce the successful completion of a redeemable convertible note issue, raising gross proceeds of $3.55 million from family offices and other professional and sophisticated investors.
Key terms of the convertible notes are available in the ASX announcement below.
In December 2019, DDLS, Australia’s largest IT training provider and a subsidiary of AWN’s wholly owned vocational and professional education and training company, EdventureCo, announced that it had entered a partnership for Australia with New Horizons, the world’s largest independent IT training provider. This followed the demise of the New Horizons Australian master franchisee (NHA) and has resulted in DDLS recruiting key trainers and students from the previous NHA businesses. NHA was the second largest IT
training provider in Australia. Proceeds from the redeemable convertible note issue will be applied by the company towards investments which are consistent with its business objectives. These include general working capital to fund organic growth such as outlined above for its education business, as well as potential accretive bolt-on acquisitions to meet the costs of the capital raise.
The prestigious Real Leaders Impact Awards 2020, co-founded and created by Real Leaders Magazine and Big Path Capital, has ranked Arowana 10th out of the top 100 companies in the global impact economy, and 1st in the Asia-Pacific region.
We are honoured to have placed alongside companies such as Natura & Co., Tesla, Unilever, Vestas, and Grove Collaborative. The rankings were assessed based on the company’s Good “score, which is calculated based on a three-year Growth rate x Revenue x Impact score.
The awards honour companies that represent “a new dynamic sector of the economy”. These are businesses that deliver great financial returns, whilst generating long-term return for society and the environment. According to Real Leaders Impact Awards, the average growth rate of these impact companies was a staggering 1,157%―strong validation that impact and profit are not mutually exclusive.
Since our inception in 2007, Arowana has set out on our mission to grow people, companies, and value. This accolade affirms our mission as we continue to build and scale up small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that serve a real purpose.
Our current portfolio includes solar development and education. We are also currently building an impact investment fund.
We are proud to share the following highlights from our portfolio:
Arowana solidified its purpose by becoming a certified B Corp company in May 2018. The certification serves as a useful guide to evaluate our total societal impact, as companies must meet B Lab’s rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. We believe this level of accountability is imperative in a landscape that can be opaque and difficult to monitor.
We will continue our mission in 2020 to grow value and impact within the Arowana portfolio and beyond.
EdventureCo is proud to announce that New Horizons Computer Learning Centers has partnered with DDLS to provide IT and Professional Development Training to Australia’s workforce.
Shelley Morris, COO of New Horizons Computer Learning Centers, said: “New Horizons and DDLS have a long history of collaboration in the IT training and education space. This partnership broadens our course and training programs and accelerates the growth of both companies. The global market continues to digitally transform, and the shortage of IT professionals continues to increase. We are pleased to announce this partnership brings together two leading companies able to address Australia’s talent and skills gap.”
Congratulations to Jon Lang and the DDLS team on this partnership, which will expand course schedule options, provide access to a worldwide delivery network of training centres, and build on the pathways for students to learn through online and offline delivery.
