STI focusing on school business

MANILA, Philippines — STI Education Services Group (STI ESG), a subsidiary of the Tanco Group’s STI Holdings, is selling its 20 percent stake in Maestro Holdings.

The move is to enable STI ESG to focus all its resources on its core business.

Maestro Holdings, part of the Tanco Group, operates as a holding company. The company, through its subsidiaries, provides financing, insurance, and financial planning services. It offers pension, education, memorial and savings schemes.

STI Holdings’ STI ESG is focusing on the school business. It has partnered with state-owned Land Bank of the Philippines (Landbank) to provide tuition loans to students.

The lending program offered by Landbank will apply to select academic institutions for school year 2020-21.

Under the program, STI ESG will extend assistance amounting up to “250 million through loans that would cover tuition, which the students may pay for within three years. The school will then guarantee the loans and assume the three percent interest required by the program, making the loan payments from students interest-free.”

“Like most Filipinos, we value education and its power to transform lives and communities. Thus, with or without the pandemic, education is our priority and we remain committed to providing the best quality possible,” said STI Holdings president and CEO Monico Jacob.

Additionally, the subsidiaries forged partnerships with key telecommunications players so that students and faculty may proceed with their respective classes through the schools’ learning management systems via online and distance learning.

“We are confident that our quick adaptation to the new normal of education will enable and empower our students to keep on learning. What’s important for us now, more than anything else, is to keep moving forward. After all, no matter the situation, learning shouldn’t stop,” Jacob said.