8I Holdings Limited (ASX:8IH)

[jaco]

https://cdn-api.markitdigital.com/apiman...9ad5cb14c3
"In response to this uncertain global investment climate, 8IH undertook a comprehensive and strategic restructuring. This transformative process involved the divestment of all its operational businesses, including VI College and Goodwhale, its FinEduTech arm. This decision marked a significant shift in the Group's strategic direction, as it moved away from managing educational services to focusing exclusively on investment activities. The divestment allowed 8IH to streamline its operations and concentrate its resources on its core competency of investment management. "

8IH did a spin-off of their VI College shares to all 8IH shareholders. VI College itself is listed as 8VIC. However, the majority owners of 8IH, Ken Chee and Clive Tan, are also the majority owners of 8VIC. Hence, 8IH and 8VIC are now sister companies rather than the latter being a subsidiary of the first. Ken Chee and Clive Tan did not give up on educational services. Besides majority share holders they are also involved operationally in 8VIC again.

I only noticed 8IH's year report because you mentioned it. I looked at it briefly and don't understand what the function of 8IH is now. They state that... "Our focus is on
leveraging diversified, low-expense ETFs for broad market exposure and meticulously selecting undervalued companies with strong growth potential." They don't provide any further details about this, like for who they are offering this investment service. Or is it basically a closed-end fund?

Besides all that, the educational company 8VIC is also not doing well. It's revenues went from 16.3 million S$ to 10.5 million S$. I agree with you that educational services generally provide good cashflows. However, here that does not seem to be the case. 8VIC itself does not really explain the decline, apart from "The suspension of VI College's investing programs due to prevailing market conditions also impacted revenue." It is unclear if they mean the stock market condition or the market for investing courses.

If I can speculate a bit. 8IH does not offer any accredited programs, such as a university, which you can sell again and again to new generations of college-age prospect students. Instead, 8IH offers courses in an investment niche area: value investing for retail investors. Their approach is offering basic information for high course fees. Singapore's population is not very big. It could be that everybody in the relatively small target group for these courses has either attended them already or has decided that they are not interested in it.