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Summary: Universities want to house thousands of students. They just do not want to run hostels. Elevate Campuses built a business in that gap, with occupancy guarantees written into the contracts. The structure is sensible enough. Working out what you are being asked to pay for it is where it gets awkward.
Elevate Campuses is opening its IPO on September 23, 2026, and it closes on September 25. The company is raising Rs 2,100 crore through a pure fresh issue of shares. There is no offer for sale. The promoters, two Singapore-based entities owned through Hillhouse Investment, a global asset manager, are not selling any shares. But there’s a catch.
What the company does
Elevate Campuses runs two kinds of businesses:
The first is student hostels on university campuses. Universities want to house thousands of students but do not want to run hostels. Elevate builds or buys the hostel buildings, provides meals, security, laundry, and other services, and charges students rent. The university signs a long-term contract, typically with a minimum occupancy guarantee. As of March 2026, the company owns 20,368 beds across seven campuses under this model. It also manages 55,487 beds at 14 campuses for a fee, without owning those assets.
The second is owning school buildings and leasing them to K-12 school operators. The company owns the land and building; the school operator pays rent, property taxes, insurance, and all maintenance. Lock-in periods are typically 10-30 years, with annual rent increases. As of March 2026, the company owns two such schools in Dubai: Hartland International School and North London Collegiate School, acquired from promoter-affiliated entities in September 2025.
After this IPO, the company plans to acquire 16 more K-12 school assets in India, buying them from its own promoters' connected entities, using Rs 1,100 crore of the Rs 2,100 crore it is raising.
Financial summary
| Particulars (Rs crore) | FY24 | FY25 | FY26 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue from operations | 347 | 369.8 | 568.6 |
| EBITDA (normalised, excl. exceptional items) | 230.2 | 267.1 | 440.1 |
| Profit after tax | 39.7 | 49.7 | 173.8* |
| *FY2026 reported PAT includes an exceptional gain of Rs 104.9 crore from the sale of the T.A. Pai Management Institute hostel. Adjusted PAT was Rs 68.8 crore. | |||
Key ratios
| Ratio | FY24 | FY25 | FY26 |
|---|---|---|---|
| EBITDA margins (%) | 63.5 | 67.8 | 72.9 |
| ROCE (%) | 9.7 | 9.9 | 6.4 |
| Debt to equity | 1.5x | 1.7x | 4.3x |
KPIs
| Operational Metric | FY24 | FY25 | FY26 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Owned Beds (number) | 17,995 | 17,995 | 20,368 |
| Owned Beds Occupancy Rate | 99.90% | 99.50% | 89.40% |
| Managed Beds (number) | 3,783 | 47,377 | 55,487 |
| K-12 Assets (number) | 0 | 0 | 2 (Dubai) |
| Revenue from top 3 HEIs (% of total) | 88.60% | 89.00% | 61.50% |
Strengths
1. Long-term contracts with minimum occupancy guarantees give steady cash flows. The company signs multi-year agreements with universities that include minimum occupancy guarantees. The blended weighted average guarantee across its contracted Owned Portfolio is 87.55 per cent. Operating cash flow has been consistently positive, reaching Rs 297 crore in FY26. The model collects fees in advance and trade receivables are minimal.
2. India's student accommodation gap is real and large. India has 43.3 million students enrolled across 58,600+ higher education institutions and very few professionally managed on-campus hostels. As universities expand and students demand better housing, this gap will grow. The company already has relationships with ranked institutions, including OP Jindal Global University, Manipal University Jaipur, and IIT Madras, where it signed a concession agreement in November 2025 for 1,878 beds.
3. The K-12 school building model produces predictable, long-duration income. Under triple-net leases, school operators handle all costs. The company just owns the asset and collects rent. With 10-29 year lock-ins and 3-5 per cent annual escalations built into contracts, these are long-dated, low-maintenance income streams once signed.
Weaknesses
1. More than half the IPO proceeds go to the promoter's own connected entities. Rs 1,100 crore will be paid to Hillhouse-affiliated entities for 16 K-12 school assets. The company is raising public money to buy assets from its own promoter group. One of the assets being acquired, PE Bowenpally in Hyderabad (enterprise value Rs 593 crore, the largest single acquisition), has an active Benami Property notice from the Income Tax Department and a pending High Court case in Telangana. Both cases are unresolved.
2. Debt has risen sharply and return on capital is falling. Total borrowings rose from Rs 985 crore in FY24 to Rs 4,121 crore in FY26, largely to fund the Dubai school acquisition from the promoter group. Return on Adjusted Capital Employed dropped from 9.72 per cent in FY24 to 6.42 per cent in FY26. Net debt to EBITDA, excluding the one-time exceptional gain, stands at 6.23x. A 6-plus multiple is a high number for any business.
3. Customer concentration is high, and one key asset is below target occupancy. Three universities contributed 89 per cent of revenue as recently as FY25. The drop to 61.5 per cent in FY2026 looks like diversification, but it is largely because the Dubai schools, acquired from the promoter, added Rs 167 crore of rental income. The Woodstock hostel in Bangalore (1,162 beds) was vacant from September 2025 after a lease termination, refurbished, and reopened in July 2026.
4. Both promoter holding companies have pledged 100 per cent of their shares. Genius Assetco, the parent company that owns both promoter entities, has pledged its entire shareholding in Genius Bidco and Genius Rajkot to its lenders. If Genius Assetco runs into financial trouble elsewhere, lenders can seize control of these holding companies and, through them, the entire promoter stake in Elevate. Separately, a direct pledge on 22.1 million Elevate shares held by Genius Bidco was released just before the IPO but may be re-created post-listing if the underlying facility remains outstanding.
Our verdict
At Rs 362, the IPO values the company at a market cap of Rs 6,100 crore. The current business earned Rs 68.8 crore in normalised profit after tax. At the proposed market cap, you are paying 89 times that. That assumes all 16 K-12 acquisitions close without problems, the Benami case on the biggest asset goes away, all the newly leased schools pay rent on time, and the two refurbished hostels fill up to target. That is a lot to assume before you have put in a single rupee.
The business model is not bad. Long-term hostel contracts with guaranteed minimum occupancy, school buildings leased on triple-net deals for decades: these are sensible structures. Priced reasonably, this business would be worth examining.
But the IPO structure makes it hard to get excited. Of the Rs 2,100 crore you are collectively putting in, Rs 1,100 crore goes straight to the promoter's connected entities. Another Rs 750 crore repays loans the company took to fund earlier acquisitions from the same group. You are not funding growth. You are funding the promoter's exit from assets held in related entities.
Also read: Nesco: A gold mine that may take too long to dig
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