Strictly Confidential · Proposal

Lagos International
Academic City

Where British excellence meets Nigerian ambition.

A proposal to establish Africa's first purpose-built, multi-university British academic campus — a permanent cluster of UK universities delivering full undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Alaro City, Lekki Free Zone, Lagos.

Investment Case →Read the proposal

$10–15M

Initial capital requirement for a 4,000-student campus in Alaro City

Sept 2027

Target fully operational date. Soft launch proposed for September 2026

$21.5M

Base-case combined annual revenues by Year 5 (£15.9M) and EBITDA of $15m (£11.2M) at a 70% margin

22–28%

Projected IRR on Phase 1 capital (base case)

The Vision

A full British university campus, physically delivered in Lagos.

LIAC is proposed as a full-scale campus — lecture halls, libraries, student accommodation, research facilities and a student community — that happens to sit in Lagos rather than a British city.

It is the higher education equivalent of what Charterhouse, Rugby School and Wellington College have already proven possible at secondary level: world-class British education, physically delivered in Nigeria, to Nigerian students who would otherwise have left the country to access it.

"Three established UK universities are proposed as founding partners, each delivering full undergraduate and postgraduate degrees on the Lagos campus."

The Opportunity

A structural demand gap. A captive pipeline. A defining first-mover position.

44,195

Nigerian students at UK universities (2022) — the UK's third-largest source market after China and India

33%

of Nigerians surveyed name British universities as their first choice university of preference

$28B+

spent by Nigerians on foreign education 2016–2023 (CBN), incl. $1.38B in just nine months of 2022

£600M

spent on UK tuition fees alone in a single year

Trapped demand

UK TNE enrolments by Nigerians more than quadrupled — from 10,700 in 2018 to 44,000 in 2022. UK student visa refusal rates for Nigerians have risen sharply since 2022, trapping qualified, fee-paying demand for British degrees inside the country.

A built-in pipeline

Charterhouse, Rugby School and Wellington College have all opened campuses in Lagos. Their first cohorts produce a direct, year-on-year pipeline of British-curriculum A Level graduates who currently have no domestic UK-degree destination.

First and only

No multi-university British campus exists anywhere in Africa today. LIAC is positioned as the category-defining institution — capturing demand from across West Africa, not just Nigeria.

Diaspora & FX leakage

Nigerian families spend an estimated $2bn+ per year on overseas higher education, much of it in foreign currency. LIAC retains that spend domestically while delivering an equivalent qualification.

Policy tailwind

Nigerian higher education reform actively encourages credible foreign university presence to expand capacity and quality — aligning LIAC with national priorities rather than competing with them.

Defensible economics

Shared campus infrastructure across multiple UK partners drives unit economics no single-university campus can match — supporting the projected 22–28% IRR at base case.

Delivered By

An advisory and delivery platform purpose-built for this transaction.

Plethro Advisory Ltd

LIAC is being developed by Plethro Advisory Ltd, an education advisory firm that has advised on over £80 million of education investment transactions and supported British universities entering markets across Europe, the UAE, India and China. Plethro's client portfolio includes Anglia Ruskin University, the University of Derby, International Business College Manchester, UK College of Business and Computing, and London Metropolitan University, among others.

Acourze Education Ltd

Academic delivery and the university partnership function are managed through Acourze Education Ltd, Plethro's wholly-owned education delivery subsidiary. Acourze holds UK Ofqual-regulated awarding body accreditations, is UK CPD accredited, and has established academic partnerships with Anglia Ruskin University and the University of Derby — giving it the credibility and compliance infrastructure to contract with, and deliver programmes on behalf of, the proposed UK university partners.

Our Existing Partners