Britain’s biggest fitness club franchise will announce plans today to raise £500,000 via an equity raising to back ambitious plans to more than double in size by 2018.
Énergie, founded in 2003 by the fitness entrepreneur Jan Spaticchia, has 93 clubs across Britain and the Continent and expects to reach 222 by 2018, with membership numbers rising from 110,000 to 313,000.
Looking ahead to 2023, Mr Spaticchia has set an even more ambitious target of having 580 clubs with a total of one million members, including possible moves into the Middle East and the Far East.
The minimum £500,000 of new funds he is seeking, equivalent to 3.23 per cent of the company’s equity, is being raised via the Crowdcube crowdfunding platform. It has no debt.
The money will be used to invest in the resources it needs to support its growth, including technology, central infrastructure and a training academy.
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To back its growth plans, Steve Philpott, a founding shareholder and former managing director of David Lloyd Leisure, is rejoining Énergie as a non-executive director.
The group, which operates the Énergie Fitness Club, Énergie Fitness for Women and Fit4Less by Énergie brands, has sales of about £26 million and claims to be the third-biggest low-cost gym operator behind Pure Gym and The Gym Group. It has 12 clubs in Ireland, three in Latvia and one in Poland.
Mr Spaticchia, who is its chairman and chief executive and a 30 per cent shareholder, said: “We are making no secret of our intention to become the UK’s biggest fitness group and this equity offer is an important first step on that journey. Énergie has proven that the franchise model works in fitness and we are now ready to grow to the next stage and challenge for market leadership.”
The return to growth comes four years after its plans to join the stock market via a reverse takeover of a shell company came to nothing. At the time, Mr Spaticchia, 48, who confesses to being overweight himself, said: “We go after fat people — normal people.”