Fitness First
 |
|
| Private | |
| Industry | Health clubs |
| Founded | 1993 |
| Headquarters | Poole, United Kingdom |
|
Number of locations
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360 clubs |
|
Area served
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17 countries |
|
Key people
|
Oren Peleg, CEO |
| Services | Health and wellness services |
| Owner | Oaktree Capital Management |
| Parent | Fitness First Holdings Ltd. |
| Website | www |
Fitness First is the largest privately owned health club group in the world. It consists of more than 360 Fitness First clubs worldwide reaching just over 927,000 members in 16 countries. In the UK alone there are 78 Fitness First clubs with over 171,000 members. In 2005, the company was acquired by BC Partners, a London-based private equity group.
Since 2012, it has been owned by Oaktree Capital Management through a GB£550 million debt-for-equity swap, absolving the company of external debt. As of 2014, there are 377 clubs and more than 900,000 members globally.
The first Fitness First club was opened in 1993 in Bournemouth as a squash club by British investor Sir Tony Beer. In 2000 the 100th club opened in Cologne, Germany, and expanded throughout Asia and 11 clubs in Australia.
In Australia, Fitness First took over a number of Living Well Lady locations owned by the Hilton Group. They also bought the 11-gym Healthland chain from an administrator, and now own 68 gyms across Australia. In late 2006, Fitness First reached the milestone of 500 clubs worldwide, marked by the opening of the fourth club in Sydney, Australia. On 1 June 2012 Fitness First decided to sell off 24 of its 97 Australian clubs as part of a restructure of the UK parent company.
In 2003 the company was sold to Cinven for £400 million and later sold to BC Partners for £835 million in 2005. The company opened its first club in India in 2008. Fitness First introduced their signature training programme to clubs in 2009 – Freestyle Group Training. Andy Cosslett joined as the new CEO in 2012 – following a restructure of the Australian business and the Oaktree and Marathon takeover.
The company opened the concept club ‘The Zone’ in Australia in 2013 and invested £77.5 million in club upgrades. In 2014, Fitness First launched their Global Rebrand and opened ‘BEAT’; a heart rate based training micro gym in London, and their $7 million flagship Australia club in Melbourne the same year.
Fitness First has a range of different products and services including BodyFirst, Group Fitness Classes, Personal Training, Team Workouts, cardio machines, and operates annual New You Achievement Awards to recognise the progress of members.
Fitness First is also 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, a low impact aerobics group class open to members and non-members.
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Wikipedia