MILAN — The international specialist in private higher education Galileo Global Education, or GGE, has established an Italian branch.
Named Galileo Global Education Italia, the newcomer will group three major fashion, design and visual arts institutes under its umbrella. These include Istituto Marangoni, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti — better known as Naba — and Domus Academy. Istituto Marangoni was acquired by GGE’s majority shareholder Providence Equity Partners in 2011 and counts schools in Milan, Florence, London, Paris, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Mumbai and Miami, while Naba and Domus Academy are both based in Milan and were added to the group’s portfolio in November.
“Our goal is to export the Italian excellence to the world,” said Galileo Global Education Italia’s chief executive officer Roberto Riccio, who holds the same role at each of the three schools.
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Riccio underscored the importance of creating a single education pole in Italy, creating synergies for the three institutes, which he believes would “differentiate ourselves from the Anglo-Saxons realities.” These include prime competitors London’s Central Saint Martins and New York’s Parsons School of Design.
“I was worried about overlaps in our [academic programs] especially between Domus Academy and Istituto Marangoni’s design division, but they are really different and each school has its own identity,” Riccio continued.
To further enhance the cooperation among the institutes, the group is looking for a roughly 270,000-square-foot area in central Milan to establish a campus gathering the three schools.
In the meantime, Riccio aims to replicate the successful format of Istituto Marangoni’s expansion with Domus Academy and Naba. In particular, the latter will debut a new campus in March in Rome, housed in a former power plant.
“We are thinking about a mainly domestic development, even if we’re registering an increasing number of students coming from abroad, especially from China, India and Turkey,” he noted.
Regarding his long-term agenda, the goal is to seek opportunities in Africa. “If China is the present, Africa is the future,” said Riccio, highlighting that by 2050 one student out of four will arrive from that area, with said percentage climbing to 50 percent by 2100.
“We’re evaluating different formats to export our DNA to other countries, and luckily a fund like ours enables us to [move] quickly,” he said.
To wit, in April new investors joined Providence Equity Partners in controlling Galileo Global Education.
Providence, which formerly owned 100 percent of GGE, now has a 70 percent stake, while the remaining shares were acquired in April by a couple of other funds, the main one being Téthys Invest, part of the Téthys holding helmed by the Bettencourt Meyers family, which is L’Oréal’s largest investor.
“This opens to synergies and opportunities to work with the L’Oréal brand and signals GGE’s attractiveness overall,” said Riccio.
Global revenues, including all international branches of Istituto Marangoni, in addition to Domus Academy and Naba, reached 102 million euros in 2017, and students totaled 6,800. Projections for 2018 show this figure further increasing to exceed 8,000 students enrolled.
In general, the Luxembourg-based Galileo Global Education has more than 32 institutes in its portfolio, distributed in 40 European cities and across 10 countries, for a total of 85,000 students. In addition to Italy, the group also operates in France, which represents half of GGE’s revenues, Germany, Mexico and Senegal.
Schools in the group’s portfolio include L’Institut Supérieur des Arts Appliqués and L’Atelier de Sévres in France; the Macromedia University of Applied Sciences in Germany and the Instituto de Estudios Universitarios in Mexico.
Recently, GGE acquired a majority stake in Alma. Based in Colorno, near Parma, this is a leading international educational and training center for Italian cuisine founded by the late legendary Milanese chef Gualtiero Marchesi. Following the operation, GGE holds 26.5 percent of the school, flanked by Parma’s trade chamber accounting for 23.8 percent and other private shareholders.