Majan College (University College) SAOG (BACS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

[Foreign Language] Today we have number...

For the second quarter.

This is the?

For quarter 2?

Yes, for quarter 2.

6 months.

Our [ discussion ] for 6 months, that is quarter 2. We have with us here our Chair of the Board, Engineer Amir. Engineer Amir, would you like to introduce yourself?

Okay. My name is [ Amir Al Baraka ]. I am now with the Board of Governor for this Majan University College.

Okay. Engineer Amir is our new Chair of the Board of Directors, and he will be with us in this presentation. If there are any questions, we will address them. So we will start by giving our presentation about the college and the highlights. As we all know, Majan University College is the very first higher education institution in the private sector in Oman since 1995. The college continued its history of firsts. In 2017, it was the first higher education institution in Oman, whether public or private, that was institutionally accredited by the Oman Authority for Academic Accreditation and Quality Assurance of Education. The second time the college was also reaccredited, and again it is the first -- till date, it is the first higher education institution in Oman to be reaccredited. The institutional accreditation takes place every 5 years by the OAAAQA. So we've done it the first time, and we've done it the second time, and we were accredited the first time. We did not have any problems with the accreditation. The college has 3 main faculties and a postgraduate center. In the English -- in the faculty of English Language Studies, the English language bachelor program received recognition from the Chartered Institute of Linguists in the U.K., and it is one of the [indiscernible] bodies that recognize degrees of English language. This makes us the first institution in Oman that gets this accreditation and recognition and the third in the Middle East. In addition, we started our own programs as an awarding body in February 2024, and that was with the Majan Masters of Business Administration, and it is delivered in Arabic language. All our programs are delivered in English language, and our programs, [indiscernible] programs are validated by the University of Bedfordshire, and graduate programs are hosted. But this program, MUC MBA is awarded by Majan, and we got the awarding power because we are institutionally accredited. As it has always been the case, Majan is well grounded in situation in the community, and it is well respected, and in so many occasions, Majan proved that it is a trusted brand by the community. The Faculty of Business Management is the biggest faculty with the biggest number of programs, pathways, and students. The highlights from the faculty, not only that, it's programs that have been offered for a long time, they still have their popularity. We introduce new programs. These are the B.Sc. Business Analytics with Artificial Intelligence and Finance Technology, FINTECH, to address the current needs of the market. But our accounting programs, Business Administration, General Pathway, still are the programs that are very, very popular. Okay.

Just a second. I need to record.

Sorry.

We need to record.

We were supposed to start recording from the very beginning, but [indiscernible]. We're supposed to be recording the presentation. Right. The IT faculty is one of the two old faculties: Business Management when we started the college; and then we have the Information Technology faculty, and we have the English Language faculty. The Faculty of Information Technology has programs that have been running -- 3 programs that have been running for some time. The highlight of the faculty is the computing with 3 pathways that is the Oil & Gas it is -- and Software Engineering. These 2 pathways are really, really very popular among students. Recently we introduced 2 new programs: Bachelor of Honors, B.Sc. Honors Data Science. It has 2 pathways: one is Cyber Security and one is Digital Archives. The Faculty of English Language Studies hosts the foundation program, which is a bridge program between secondary school and higher education. It's a 1-year program where students receive training in English language, IT skills, and mathematics. The Bachelor of Honors in English Language is the program that I mentioned earlier, got recognition by the Chartered Institute of Linguists. The postgraduate program currently hosts Masters in Business Administration. It's a hosted program from the University of Bedfordshire; Masters in Computer Sciences; and an MBA in Applied Linguistics -- Masters of Arts in Applied Linguistics. All these programs are hosted by the college and offered by the University of Bedfordshire in the U.K. As I mentioned earlier, the new program is the Master of Business Administration delivered in Arabic language, and the award comes from Majan University College. The Majan Training Institute, and actually we might change the name, offers short courses for training, but it also offers professional courses like the ACCA and CMA, and these are -- we offer the tuition for these certifications. And the presence of these programs in our training institute supports our provision in accounting. As the graduates of our accounting programs, Bachelor of Honors and diploma programs, and mainly the Bachelor of Honors in Accounting, they receive exemption for 6 papers of the ACCA out of the 14 papers. The operational highlights, I may say that we have our provisional -- our vision, mission and strategic plan from 2021 to 2025, and now we are preparing our new strategic plan and reviewing our mission and vision, and this will be available in our next meeting as we are going through the steps of finalizing that. Now Majan was, as is the case for all other higher education institutions in Oman and in the region and worldwide, through a lot of challenges, where we tried our best, and we put measures in place to maintain our reputed position in a very growing -- fast-growing and dynamic market. Now, some of these challenges have their impact on the revenue growth. However, we rectify that by creating the programs that serve the market and all the measures that help us to continue providing higher education -- quality higher education and maintain the healthy revenue. The postgraduate center is actually a profit center for the college. And we will continue to maintain this as it provides both quality and revenue. Over to you -- if you have any questions, we'll be more than happy to answer them later. Over to Karim.

Good afternoon. I'm Karim, the Chief Finance, the Governance and Investor Relations Officer. Just to give a brief about our 6-month result. The total income has increased by 4%, up by OMR 92,000 from -- compared to [ February 23, 2024 ]. Total expenses have increased by 6%. That's around OMR 100,000. Net profit before tax has decreased slightly by 3%. That's OMR 11,000. Taxation had been reduced by 3% due to the decrease in net profit. Net profit had reached 366,000 for the 6-month period. Total income increased by 4%. It's reached [ OMR 2.35 million ]. The increase is coming from the new undergraduate student as well as increase in postgraduate, as Dr. Maha said, for our MBA in Arabic language. Total expense increased by 6% to reach OMR 1.92 million. The main increase was the increase in G&A expenses. Net profit before tax and taxation decreased by 3%. Consequently, overall net profit after tax decreased by 3% to reach OMR 365,000. Our earnings per share has slightly decreased from 42 baiza to 41 baiza.

Now, as I mentioned, the future look is, we would like to continue providing the community and the market locally, regionally, and globally, with the programs and the skills that are required. We also show our commitment to excellence as we look at our infrastructure, whether it is the IT or our physical infrastructure, to provide students with a very rewarding and pleasant learning experience. Our strategic plan, operation plans will include all that. Now, when we come to our graduates, they are our ambassadors, and we have data that shows our graduates do secure jobs in the market. This really provides good feedback about our graduates. If there is anything else -- research also is very important in the college, and I take this opportunity to thank the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation for the support that they provide. So we will be more than happy, Chair of the Board, myself, and Karim, to answer any questions. Thank you.

Engineer, our Chair of the Board, would you like to add anything, Engineer Amir?

No, no, that's very good. At least we have 3% increase, which is good news.

So with your permission, Mr. Chairman, if there aren't any questions, I think we can close.

Yes.

Yes. Okay. Thank you for your briefing.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much for those who attended, and thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And till we meet next time, thank you very much. Goodbye.

Yes. Thank you. Goodbye.