Stadio reaches out to make students investors

JSE-LISTED Stadio Holdings is purchasing shares for its postgraduate class of 2021, making it South Africa’s first higher education institution to make students shareholders.

Stadio chief academic officer Divya Singh said that for many students, the idea of investing on the JSE was something for “business people” and was a world beyond their reach.

“Stadio is making this world accessible to its students and will also provide short-learning courses on the basics of investing, amongst other things, to further upskill our graduates,” Singh said.

As part of the launch of the Stadio Khulisa Student Share Scheme, post graduate alumni were issued with shares worth R1 000 at Stadio graduation ceremonies last week, with around 1 200 Stadio postgraduate graduates receiving shares each year in future.

Stadio has also partnered with wealth experts Investec to train and support the students in managing their portfolios.

Stadio chief executive Chris Vorster said the group was purchasing shares in the free market for its postgraduate graduates to widen access and share its wealth with students. “We are not diluting our current shareholders, we will buy the shares in the open market and give them to postgraduate students that graduate,” said Vorster.

Vorster said the shares would have a two-year lock-in period after which the students could either sell their shares on the open market or retain their shares and look to expand their shareholding in the group.

Vorster, who was appointed as chief executive in April 2020, said 0.2 percent of the group’s revenue would be given as part of the first student share scheme.

“It is still very small, we understand that. But for us it is a significant step in really putting our students on the track of opening the financial market to them,” Vorster said.

Vorster said that he always challenged his management team to add value to students. “I always said our qualifications are world class and will open doors and asked them what else can we do in creating a better life for our students, and we think this is groundbreaking for us. “A lot of them would normally not have entered into the financial market, and with Investec and Stadio giving them that support we’re opening a new world for them,” he said.

Stadio was spun off from Curro Holdings in 2017 with 700 students. It currently has about 38 000 students.

According to a 1Life Generational Wealth survey, most young working South Africans don’t have access to generational wealth.

Studies have found that only 39 percent of the population understand what it means or has the know-how to create generational wealth.