Health and fitness club operator LA Fitness has made a series of announcements regarding expansion and development of different sectors of its business.

Accepting the award for European Operator of the Year at the IHRSA Europe Conference at the Park Lane Hilton in London, on 3 October, LA Fitness chief executive Fred Turok announced that they would be launching an Entrepreneurs Fund to be headed up by its property director, David Turner.

LA Fitness invited all entrepreneurs in the industry to contact them and said they would undertake to back the best ideas to bring them to the market.

Elsewhere, preliminary results from LA Fitness for the year ending 31 July 2003 have been generally positive. They include a 39 per cent rise in turnover to £66.3m, a drop in pre-tax profits to £7.2m but a 12 per cent rise in operating profit to £10.4m.

Chair of the group, Peter Jacobs, announced that LA Fitness has “excellent opportunities for future development”. He also said their business model “continues to perform robustly” while the availability of new sites “remains strong”. He added: “We are confident in our strategy and believe that we are well positioned once again to grow the business and its profitability.”