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Fitness First
Fitness First is an international fitness centre brand founded in 1993 in the United Kingdom. The company owned and operated its clubs around the world until financial pressures saw parts of the company sold off to various owners in different regions.
The first Fitness First club was opened by Mike Balfour in 1993 in Bournemouth, UK. The name Fitness First was sold to Mike Balfour by Tony Greaves, after Tony serviced the Queens Club in Bournemouth’s gym and Mike took a liking to the name.
Fitness First entered the Australian market in 2000 after buying assets from the collapsed Healthland chain and acquiring a number of Living Well Lady locations owned by the Hilton Group in 2006.
In 2003, the company was sold to Cinven for £404 million, making the company private, and re-sold in 2005 to BC Partners for £835 million, at a time when EBITDA was around £95 million. The company opened its first clubs in India in 2008.
By 2012, a high debt, a failed IPO, and increasing competition from low-cost fitness chains forced the company to abandon expansion plans and had to sell clubs in Spain, Italy, and Benelux-member nations and sell off 24 of its 97 Australian clubs. It was subsequently acquired by Oaktree Capital Management and Marathon Asset Management through a £550 million debt-for-equity swap.
Since then, ownership of the company has been diluted around the world, largely due to sustained losses. The Australian arm of Fitness First was sold in 2016 to the Fitness and Lifestyle Group. In the same year, DW Sports Fitness acquired all 62 Fitness First clubs in the UK, selling 14 of those and continuing to operate 48 under the Fitness First brand. In 2017, the Fitness First Asia business that was operating in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, merged with Celebrity Fitness to create Evolution Wellness, co-owned by Oaktree and Navis Capital Partners. As of December 2018, there are 95 Fitness First clubs in the Fitness First Asia network.
Fitness First is the company behind International Fitness Week, which takes place each February. Initiatives in 2009 have included the launch of Strictly Fit in conjunction with BBC Worldwide, intended to be a low-impact aerobics group class.[citation needed]
The company opened the concept club ‘The Zone’ in Australia in 2013. In 2014, Fitness First launched their Global Rebrand and opened ‘BEAT’; a heart rate based training micro gym in London, and their Australia club in Melbourne the same year.[citation needed]
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Fitness First
Fitness First is an international fitness centre brand founded in 1993 in the United Kingdom. The company owned and operated its clubs around the world until financial pressures saw parts of the company sold off to various owners in different regions.
The first Fitness First club was opened by Mike Balfour in 1993 in Bournemouth, UK. The name Fitness First was sold to Mike Balfour by Tony Greaves, after Tony serviced the Queens Club in Bournemouth’s gym and Mike took a liking to the name.
Fitness First entered the Australian market in 2000 after buying assets from the collapsed Healthland chain and acquiring a number of Living Well Lady locations owned by the Hilton Group in 2006.
In 2003, the company was sold to Cinven for £404 million, making the company private, and re-sold in 2005 to BC Partners for £835 million, at a time when EBITDA was around £95 million. The company opened its first clubs in India in 2008.
By 2012, a high debt, a failed IPO, and increasing competition from low-cost fitness chains forced the company to abandon expansion plans and had to sell clubs in Spain, Italy, and Benelux-member nations and sell off 24 of its 97 Australian clubs. It was subsequently acquired by Oaktree Capital Management and Marathon Asset Management through a £550 million debt-for-equity swap.
Since then, ownership of the company has been diluted around the world, largely due to sustained losses. The Australian arm of Fitness First was sold in 2016 to the Fitness and Lifestyle Group. In the same year, DW Sports Fitness acquired all 62 Fitness First clubs in the UK, selling 14 of those and continuing to operate 48 under the Fitness First brand. In 2017, the Fitness First Asia business that was operating in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, merged with Celebrity Fitness to create Evolution Wellness, co-owned by Oaktree and Navis Capital Partners. As of December 2018, there are 95 Fitness First clubs in the Fitness First Asia network.
Fitness First is the company behind International Fitness Week, which takes place each February. Initiatives in 2009 have included the launch of Strictly Fit in conjunction with BBC Worldwide, intended to be a low-impact aerobics group class.[citation needed]
The company opened the concept club ‘The Zone’ in Australia in 2013. In 2014, Fitness First launched their Global Rebrand and opened ‘BEAT’; a heart rate based training micro gym in London, and their Australia club in Melbourne the same year.[citation needed]