Childcare supremos battle over Mayfield

The hostile on-market takeover bid for ASX-listed Mayfield Childcare Group by rival Embark Early Education hasn't featured heavily in financial news coverage – after all, both groups are stock market tiddlers. Embark's equity valuation is $117 million, while Mayfield's is just $38 million. Embark operates 39 childcare centres while Mayfield operates 46.

But the deal is perhaps a microcosm of the troubles in this sector, which has been radioactive since Adele Ferguson last year revealed scandalous shortfalls and outright abuse in childcare centres across the nation. 

The deal also features some of the biggest names in the industry, which like anything that involves rivers of government money, is a hotbed of rat cunning operators. 

Embark's managing director is Chris Scott, who previously rolled together G8 Education as Australia's biggest for-profit childcare group with more than 500 centres.[[G8 has subsequently divested underperforming centres and now has approximately 430.]] While Scott left the company way back in 2017, G8 is now under white-hot scrutiny. In June 2025, former employee Joshua Dale Brown was charged with 70 counts of sexually abusing eight children under his care at one G8 centre in Melbourne and is facing charges relating to three other centres (under various ownership). He had worked at 20 centres, in total, across Melbourne. 

The Albanese and state governments have responded to Ferguson's exposés and the Brown charges with increased regulation and oversight and the valuations of the ASX-traded players have been brutalised. G8 shares are down almost 70 per cent. Embark is down 27 per cent.