27 minutes ago.
Updated 2 minutes ago
The Australian Business Network
A few weeks ago, Margin Call published a public service announcement for parents with kids enrolled at Swiss private equity-backed childcare operator Guardian Childcare & Education.
That was after parents with children enrolled at Guardian’s Roseville centre on Sydney’s North Shore learned – through an email sent at pick-up time on June 30 – that their centre was to be closed in five weeks’ time.
Staff were told at the same time, also in an email.
All this jars with Guardian chief executive Warren Bright’s talk of the warm inner glow he gets from the “noble purpose” of the industry.
“It’s not in every role that, even on a bad day, you can feel quite good that you’ve helped to improve outcomes for children,” he has said.
Those fine words are being quoted darkly by a growing army of parents who, until recently, have had their children enrolled in the Guardian network.
Much of the distress is taking place on Sydney’s north shore. Parents with kids at Guardian’s Cherrybrook centre also got the Roseville treatment: an end-of-financial-year email telling them they had better find other options – and fast. Guardian’s Torquay centre, in Victoria, is also in the process of being hastily shut down.
Mercifully, parents at Guardian’s Marsfield and Macquarie Park centres, also both on Sydney’s north shore, have been given months of notice that their centres are destined for the chopping block.
It appears to us like the taxpayer-dependent chain of almost 180 centres around Australia is being trimmed by its Swiss private equity owner, Partners Group, ahead of another attempt to flog it off.
In July 2024 it was reported in the financial press that Partners Group was in discussion about a $1bn sale of the outfit, which the Swiss had bought for $440m in 2016.
Back then, local private equity outfit Pacific Equity Partners was said to have taken a look. Margin Call hears that Tim Sim’s PEP crew has kept its distance ever since.
“Exiting centres is not something new, it is part and parcel of having a network – just as opening and buying centres is,” Bright told Margin Call.
Further up the food chain, Partners Group head of Australian operations Martin Scott indicated that Guardian was on the market for the right price.
“We have now owned Guardian for 10 years and are very proud of the service it provides. It would be a natural outcome to pass this on to the next custodian at some point, but no decision has been made regarding that,” he told Margin Call.
As we previously noted, parents are advised to maintain an interest in the commercial viability of their local centre, lest they too experience a Roseville surprise.
“Our role is to create value for the community and investors, therefore we are always reviewing the portfolio as a normal course of business and refining the offering to ensure it is relevant for those it serves,” Scott said. “Any owner would do the same.”
Parents of Guardianistas, you have been warned.
Will GlasgowSenior journalist and Margin Call columnist