FMU (United Metropolitan Colleges) filed a judicial recovery on Thursday (13) in São Paulo, seeking protection to renegotiate a debt of $ 130 million. The value equals less than half of the institution’s revenues last year, which totaled R $ 318 million.
The request was motivated by financial difficulties resulting from accumulated liabilities with rents and property tax from their campuses, which belong to the Alves Silva family, founder of FMU, as well as challenges related to the educational sector in recent years.
FMU rector Ricardo Ponsensirea assured that the request for judicial recovery will not affect the academic routine, investments will not even result in layoffs. “There will be no layoffs, no projects will be canceled,” he told the newspaper S.Paulo Folha. According to him, judicial protection was a preventive measure to prevent cash impairment in the future.
FMU has faced a challenging context since 2021, marked by restrictions on FIES, dropout and high default. During the pandemic, the institution invested heavily to adapt its classes to remote education, which contributed to current debt. By 2023, measures had already begun to equalize its debt and, with adjustments made, projects a substantial improvement in the ebitda margin adjusted over 2025, estimated at 21.5% compared to 14.1% recorded in 2023.
A significant part of the FMU liability involves a judicial dispute with its founders, the Alves Silva family, related to real estate lease contracts where the campuses operate. These contracts were signed in 2014, after the sale of FMU to the American group Laureate for about R $ 1 billion, establishing that the former owners would continue as owners of properties, renting them to the institution.
FMU claims that several of these properties were sealed due to building debts, forcing the institution to rent new units. The founding family has already achieved a attachment of R $ 7 million against FMU and there are additional charges in court for extrajudicial securities for 2023. In addition, two arbitration on the rent has been underway for years.
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Since 2020, FMU has belonged to the Farallon Investment Fund, which acquired the institution as part of Laureate’s purchase by Ânima Education. In 2021, the FMU was passed on to Farallon for R $ 500 million, after an Anima divestment for competitive reasons with Cade.
