Billionaire Jannie Mouton has put a hefty R7.2bn on the table to take Curro private in what would be one of the most audacious and biggest acts of education philanthropy in corporate SA.
Mouton, founder of Capitec, PSG Group and PSG Financial Services, has, through his Jannie Mouton Stigting, offered R13 a share for SA’s largest private school network operator and proposed transforming it into a public benefit organisation.
The offer price, a 60% premium to Curro’s share price before the announcement, will be financed via a mix of cash and Capitec and PSG Financial Services stock. The deal, which is subject to regulatory approval, would end Curro’s 24-year career on the bourse and hand full control to the family foundation.
Curro shares surged more than 50% on Wednesday after the announcement of the proposed deal, which would remove profit targets and focus on reinvesting every rand generated in bursaries, classrooms, teacher training and new schools in underserved communities.
Mouton said the deal reflected a “game-changing donation” to quality education and “quite possibly the largest philanthropic contribution SA has ever seen”.
Over time, this will open the door for thousands more children to attend Curro schools through bursaries, broadening access to excellent education, he said.
A successful deal could mark a seismic shift in how Curro is operated. The company would retain its management and key employees, but would operate as an unlisted nonprofit and public benefit organisation, focused on “scaling its operations for the benefit of SA learners more broadly”.
Parents are still going to be paying school fees that they are currently paying, but we’ll use the profit from those activities to give talented, underprivileged children bursaries, to make Curro’s facilities even better and to build new schools.
— Jan Mouton
Recasting Curro as a social enterprise rather than a cash cow places the Mouton family in an education system that carries the substantial weight of the country’s apartheid past. Separate and unequal schooling continues to leave a deep divide in resources, infrastructure and outcomes.
Education commands about 20% of the national expenditure, yet many state schools still battle ageing facilities, textbook shortages and high learner-teacher workloads.
Four members of Mouton’s foundation will be appointed to Curro’s board.
Jan Mouton, Jannie’s son and deputy chair of the foundation, said the takeover would allow Curro to focus on expanding its reach and impact without being beholden to shareholders.
Jan Mouton told Business Day Curro will build new schools in underprivileged areas in a few years’ time. For now, the focus will be on investing in its existing schools to provide underprivileged, high-achieving students with bursaries.
“Most of the schools are in Gauteng, the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, so the focus would be there, but that doesn’t preclude us from building schools in underprivileged areas where we think we can make a positive contribution to education,” Mouton Jnr said.
Other private schools such as Bishops, St Cyprians and Somerset College — which all mostly cater to high-income earners — are also public benefit organisations.
Still, the absence of shareholders does not guarantee a change in the demographics of Curro’s student body, core philosophy or strategy.
“Parents are still going to be paying school fees that they are currently paying,” Mouton Jnr said, “but we’ll use the profit from those activities to give talented, underprivileged children bursaries, to make Curro’s facilities even better and to build new schools.”
The offer comes as Curro’s share price has drifted for the past five years. After rising steadily to a peak of R57.49 in 2015, the group has struggled to boost student enrolment numbers in recent years.
The stock is down almost 21% over the past three years, underperforming competitor AdvTech, which has doubled in value over the same period. Over the past five years, AdvTech has soared fourfold, while Curro is up just 0.12%.
Still, the R7.2bn commitment by Jannie Mouton — who owns about 3.4% of the company at present — is significant, with Forbes estimating the family to be worth $1.9bn (R33.6bn).
In May, Curro refinanced R2bn of debt that was due by the end of 2026. Later that month the company had its long and short-term credit rating affirmed with a positive outlook.
Nedbank Corporate and Investment Banking division provided a R500m revolving credit facility to Curro less than a week ago as part of the debt refinancing process. Nedbank at the time said the initiative reflected its broader ambition to back scalable businesses that deliver economic and societal returns.
Curro founder Chris van der Merwe was upbeat about the offer. “Now thousands of talented children who might never have had the chance to go to excellent schools will get the opportunity to reach their full potential.”
Curro CEO Cobus Loubser said Curro’s independent board would evaluate the offer further, “but suffice to say the Jannie Mouton Foundation is not a competitor of Curro and has offered a substantial premium to the market price”.
Update: August 27 2025
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