Nido Education releases inaugural CY23 results as ASX listed company 

Nido Education has released its first set of full year results as a public company four months after raising $99.2 million on the ASX and becoming the fourth publicly listed early learning provider in Australia. 

The Group reported total income of $95.7 million, a 62 per cent increase on the previous year, supported by the acquisition of 24 services in October 2023 as well as ongoing growth in its organic portfolio. 

As at 31 December 2023 Nido owned and operated 52 centres with a further 45 managed on behalf of third party owners. The majority of Nido’s geographic exposure is in Western Australia, which represents 44 per cent of the total portfolio, followed by Victoria at 33 per cent. 

Nido generated underlying earnings of $0.36 million in 2023, a modest result impacted by onerous non recurring costs associated with the company’s stock market listing and a build up in support office personnel to manage the enlarged business. 

Initial funding provided to Nido incubation vehicle 

As detailed in the results presentation Nido seeks to drive growth via an incubator model designed to mitigate proprietary trade up risk for the Group when it onboards new centres. 

NAED has been established as the Nido incubator vehicle and is tasked with the development and trade up of prospective Nido sites. Notably, after development sites have been opened Nido receives an establishment fee of $250,000, an annual management fee of $120,000 and NAED incurs any ramp up losses. 

Once the centres reach an 80 per cent occupancy rate and/or generate $5,500 EBIT per licenced place per annum (AEBIT) the centre then is acquired by Nido at a multiple of 4.5x. 

In the second half of 2023 Nido extended a loan of $6.2 million to NAED to support its development activities. Nido currently has 11 services in incubation with a further 80 to 100 services expected to open in the next four to five years.

Nido signals February 2024 occupancy at 73 per cent

Occupancy as at 11 February 2024 was 73 per cent, impacted by the seasonality that comes with children transitioning out of early learning services into their first year of school. Occupancy peaked in 2023 at 82.5 per cent. 

Across the Group’s extended portfolio fees are now $147 per day with services averaging around 89 license places each. 

Notably Nido reported a materially improved workforce acquisition requirement position with 105 roles currently open compared to 160 last year. The total number of educators working at Nido was 1,924, around 37 per centre. 

From a quality perspective 84 per cent of services achieved a National Quality Standard rating of Meeting or Exceeding, four percentage points higher than the national average across Australia. 

To review Nido’s Full Year results presentation please visit their website.