The Education Investment Corporation (Educor), the JSE-listed education and recruitment company which owns 50% of IT firm Paracon, is restructuring its board in line with its new focus on IT and e-commerce.
The company, which has reported a 60.8% increase in headline earnings for the year to 31 December, says Prof Andy Andrews, Allan Zulberg and Susan Bedil have resigned as directors, although they will remain in their executive positions within the group.
Neville Mackay has resigned as non-executive director.
CE Charles Rowlinson says the group plans to reconstitute the board to support the changed nature of Educor`s activities.
Educor recently announced that it planned to reposition itself to drive its two core businesses into the IT and e-commerce age following the acquisition of Naspers` National Private Colleges.
"Naspers` technologically advanced IT and media delivery mechanisms through M-Web and MultiChoice will be used to drive private education into new markets," the group announced. The business will be unbundled to Educor shareholders and listed separately on the JSE in the education and staffing sector.
Educor increased turnover in the year to 31 December to R1.4 billion, compared with R983.3 million in the 1998 financial year.
Rawlinson says this in part reflects the full-year contributions from some businesses acquired during the previous financial year.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation rose to R263.3 million (1998: R107.5 million), with the margin rising to 11.7% from 10.9%. Educor`s medium-term target is 15%.
The bulk of the R263.3 million (84%) is from South African operations, but Rawlinson says the offshore businesses are becoming increasingly important.
Reflecting the swing towards outsourcing and IT, about 27% of group turnover was from the education business, down from 46% last year, with the remainder coming from recruitment, outsourcing, consulting and IT consulting.
Headline earnings increased to R139.2 million (R86.6 million). Headline earnings per share increased 40% to 31.1c (22.2c).
Following the Naspers deal, the Educor board has decided to postpone a resolution with regard to a dividend.
Educor`s share price was up 2c to 386c by late Monday morning.
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