Fitness First For Sale for $1 Billion

by News.com.au (Industry Resource)

FITNESS FIRST is getting ready for a potential $1 billion sale as its UK owners turn to the private equity market for a potential buyer.

BC Partners, the owners of the gym chain, is planning to sell its Australian and Asian operations in what would be the biggest private-equity sale this year.

The plan to sell the company comes amidst declining membership numbers, falling earnings, large capital expenditure requirements and a failed plan to float the company in Singapore, The Australian Financial Review reports.

But it is not yet known what the sale will mean for thousands of gym-goers.

BC Partners have appointed Rothschild to handle the sale which is expected to be wrapped up by Christmas.

A spokesperson for BC Partners in Australia or Rothschild could not be reached for comment today.

Fitness First in Australia and Asia includes 165 gyms and more than 400,000 members. 


It was started 17 years ago in the UK when two entrepreneurs opened a health club with a dream to make fitness affordable to everybody.

Fitness First has about 21 per cent of Australia's $1.8 billion fitness industry, a long way behind the next biggest, YMCA which only has a 5 per cent market share.