Ayala buys out Anscor in iPeople for P351M

Conglomerate Ayala Corp. has completed a P351-million deal to buy out the 2.8-percent stake held by A. Soriano Corp. (Anscor) in education holding firm iPeople Inc.

This raised Ayala’s interest in iPeople, a partnership with the Yuchengco group, to 36.3 percent.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Thursday, Ayala said it had acquired about 29.24 million iPeople shares from Anscor.

The shares exchanged hands through a special block sale on the Philippine Stock Exchange priced at P12 per share.

iPeople is controlled by the Yuchengco group’s House of Investments Inc. (HI).

In 2019, iPeople merged with AC Education, the wholly-owned education arm of Ayala, thereby consolidating the education network of the two conglomerates.

Together with HI, iPeople wholly owns and operates its main subsidiary, Malayan Education System, operator of Mapúa University.

Mapúa University operates its main campus in Intramuros, Manila and an extension campus in Buendia, Makati City. Mapúa also has three wholly-owned operating schools, the Malayan Colleges Laguna (A Mapúa School) Inc., Malayan Colleges Mindanao Inc. and the Malayan High School of Science Inc.

When it merged with Ayala’s AC Education, iPeople acquired three additional operating subsidiaries: National Teachers College, University of Nueva Caceres and Affordable Private Education Center Inc., which is doing business under the name of APEC Schools.

In the school year ended June 2025, iPeople booked a slightly higher consolidated net income of P419 million compared with P411 million in the past year. This growth was primarily driven by improved performance of its schools, which recorded higher student enrollment.

Revenues from school operations rose by 10 percent, reaching P2.73 billion.

But the overall revenue growth was partially curbed by the impact of a timing difference in revenue recognition.