Shesh Ghale pitches in for Nepal as Covid hits recovery effort

The Nepalese-born developer is concerned about the longer-term implications for border closures on the higher education sector.

Shesh Ghale at his historic Argus Building in Melbourne's CBD that is now Melbourne Institute of Technology headquarters. Picture: Stuart McEvoy.

Education entrepreneur Shesh Ghale says his Covid-hit homeland of Nepal is suffering out of the world’s spotlight as a lack of oxygen, ventilators and shortage of intensive care units has overwhelmed the hospital system.

Ghale and wife Jamuna Gurung moved from Nepal to Melbourne in the mid-1990s, building their Melbourne Institute of Technology private education business into a powerhouse over two decades and accumulating a portfolio of office, hotel and commercial property buildings.

As part of this was the massive restoration effort of the former Argus newspaper building in the heart of Melbourne that had stood abandoned for years.

They are still major philanthropists in their home country, having funded and helped the rebuilding of his mother’s village stone by stone after the 2014 Nepalese earthquake.

More recently, Nepal has been badly hit by surging Covid numbers that Ghale says is even worse on a per capita basis than India, “The health care system in Nepal is very poor particularly in the villages and mountains; nothing reaches there and Covid spread in those remote villages. Among those people are my relatives and my very old mum – all I could offer was a prayer and just saying ‘stay home mum and stay safe’.”

• Name: Shesh Ghale
• Age: 59
• Lives: Melbourne
• Estimated wealth: $1.03bn (with Jamuna Gurung)
• Source: Education, property
• Secrets of success: building Melbourne Institute of Technology into one of the biggest private education businesses in Australia
• The List - Australia’s Richest 250

To help with the relief effort, Ghale has ordered 220 oxygen concentrators and equipment to help the Nepal government to save lives of ordinary citizens and has donated almost $1m for various causes.

Ghale and Gurung’s MIT Group Foundation is also lobbying Australian and international governments and agencies to share excess vaccine stocks with impoverished countries such as Nepal.

“The vaccines developed so far have proven to effectively protect lives and livelihood. As such, MIT Group Foundation supports vaccination for all adults as the best course of action to free us from the pandemic,” Ghale says.

Ghale and Gurung are building a hotel in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, the five-star 225-room Sheraton. Ghale says construction is ongoing though there have been multiple stoppages during a series of government-mandated lockdowns. “Our builders are very resilient and not giving up so it will be completed in a year or so.”

But a big portion of their business holdings are in and around the Melbourne CBD, where MIT’s headquarters is situated and where Ghale owns several commercial property buildings.

There are challenging times for both sectors of the market, with new international student numbers dwindling since COVID-19 first hit Australia in March last year and central Melbourne still suffering from low traffic and visitation given the several lockdowns that Victoria has suffered.

The commercial education sector has been one of the industries hardest hit by international border closures as most of the providers are heavily reliant on international students.

Ghale says MIT has now survived two financial years relatively intact, but has a warning about the next 12 months.

“The 2022 fiscal year is going to be the hardest hit, so we are budgeting that new international students will not join at all next financial year,” he said.

“As an institute we have learnt a lot over the last 15 months such as the online delivery of our courses and local market penetration and diversification, though it is incremental – but promising. The institute will still withstand another year or so, but beyond that there will be issues with its sustainability.”

On a wider level though, Ghale expresses concerns about the government’s population and migration policy and how much value is being placed in the education sector that was one of Australia’s biggest export industries before Covid.

“We are sensing international education, migration, population and international boarders becoming more political than driven by a long term vision for the prosperity [of Australia]. Now is the time to set the post- Covid scene and how to recover quickly.

Regardless of government policies though, things that are within our control we are making inroads such as developing better products and getting ready for a V shaped recovery [as] we have confidence because our products are still in high demand in our source markets [for overseas students].”

Otherwise, Ghale says he is still pushing ahead with plans for a $500m hotel and office complex near Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Market that was originally set for completion by 2023.

“Everything is on hold [but] we are still optimistic that once borders open we will restart. We are not changing anything, our product mix will be the same as approved – hotel and office. There are no divestment plans yet.”