EFG Hermes’ MindSpire is bringing Hayah School to Saudi Arabia

MindSpire Education, a company backed by the private equity unit of EFG Hermes, is opening next year the first branch in Saudi Arabia of Egypt’s Hayah Schools, according to a press release (pdf). The school will run on Hayah’s IB curriculum, with US-based Fulton Science Academy anchoring the STEM track.

The launch of Hayah in Saudi is an example of the kind of “local champion” that MindSpire looks for and wants to take and grow across borders, EFG Hermes Co-CEO Karim Moussa tells EnterpriseAM. The school boasts some of the highest IB scores regionally and carries a strong brand in the Egyptian market, Moussa says. “If we can replicate what [Hayah] did in Egypt to its kids and families in Saudi Arabia, I'll be very happy.”

The firm announced the new campus at an event in Riyadh to roll out the MindSpire brand — longtime readers of EnterpriseAM are already familiar with Spark Education Platform (SEP), EFG Hermes’ K-12 education platform that also includes the Egypt Education Platform brand in Egypt. Spark will be known as MindSpire going forward.

BACKGROUND- Beyond Hayah, MindSpire’ portfolio now includes management partnerships with GEMS Education and the Trillium & Petals preschool network. It also includes Option Travel and Selah El Telmeez, which for six decades has been a household name in Egypt and around the Arab world thanks to its stream of K-12 education content in paper and digital form. MindSpire serves some 20k students at more than 30 schools offering five curricula.

We have more on MindSpire in this morning’s EnterpriseAM Saudi.