German fitness operator, Life Fit Group, led by Martin Seibold, has snapped Loft Holding GmbH and its fitness brand Fitness Loft. The company has also announced it has gone through a refinancing process by way of increasing its existing bond facility which will conclude before the year end.

Life Fit has a wide range of businesses within its portfolio, spanning all parts of the market from the Full-Service-Best-Price (FSBP) segment, through to boutiques. It’s also a partner for Xponential Fitness in Germany.

Fitness Loft joins the company’s other brands, Fitness First Black and Fitness First Red, Smile X, In Shape, Elbgym, Barry’s, The Gym Society and Xponential’s Club Pilates and Pure Barre.

Christophe Collinet, CCO of Lift Fit, who spent 18 months working on the Fitness Loft deal told HCM the move is taking the company deeper into the fast-growing lower end of the market, where trading has returned most strongly since the lockdowns, saying: “The acquisition of Fitness Loft is an investment our FSBP portfolio – the fastest-growing market segment of the German fitness landscape.

“The Life Fit Group has recovered well from the pandemic,” says Collinet. “With over 11,000 positive net member movement in October and November 2022, our like-for-likes for the group overall are now at around 90 per cent of pre-COVID levels, however, the FSBP segment is coming back the strongest, being at 99 per cent already.”

Fitness Loft is expected to contribute €5m of Life Fit’s forecast €19m EBITDA profit for 2023 as a result of this trend for accelerated recovery in the FSBP sector. Turnover for 2023 is expected to be €157m.

Life Fit says it moved back into profit in October this year and is forecasting a loss for the full year 2022 of €7m on revenues expected to be in the region of €135m – including government grants of v41.8m.

Collinet says the first priority for Fitness Loft will be to integrate the operations of the business, saying: “The main focus is to continue its rapid membership growth, integrate with the group and make the best use of the Life Fit Group synergies,” he explained. “Similar to our Fitness First and SmileX brands, Fitness Loft will move to a new shared membership management system and integrate with the existing operations.”

Collinet told HCM that Life Fit may eventually consolidate its brands in the FSBP segment, saying: “There are no plans to change the Fitness Loft brand in the short term, but we will aim for a convergence of our brands within the FSBP segment at some point.”

The acquisition is being funded by a €15m bond top up and a €12m equity contribution from the company’s majority shareholder, Oaktree Capital Management. The company says the bond Issue will be fully subscribed, based on commitments from institutional investors and the maturity of the bond has been extended until January 2025.

Fitness Loft operates 27 facilities in the German states of Bremen, Hamburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Schleswig Holstein. The chain, with more than 65,000 members, has high-quality studios and ‘loft-inspired’ interiors and a management team with experience in acquiring local operators.

It has pushed through two new openings since 2019 and is reporting consistent monthly member additions, with more than 1,500 new members added in November this year bringing it near to pre-COVID levels in terms of its membership base.

As at Q3 2022, Fitness Loft is reporting revenues of €16.6m and adjusted EBITDA of €1.6m ( adjusted for governmental support). The normalised October 2022 run-rate is at €19.2 million revenue and €3.6 million EBITDA.

“Fitness Loft has outperformed the overall market during the COVID-19 pandemic,” says Collinet. “The alignment of the studios fits very well with our segmentation in Fitness First Red as well as SmileX and In Shape.”

“The Fitness Loft studios fill geographical gaps in the Life Fit portfolio and increase our portfolio in the full service best price segment to over 50 per cent, “ says Martin Seibold, CEO of LifeFit Group. “We’re convinced from a data perspective and market dynamics that the High Value Low Price segment will grow strongest in the German market in the future. This provides us with an ideal base for further growth in local markets and the scale to be a dominant nationwide player in Germany.”

“With the acquisition, we’re defying macroeconomic challenges and taking another important step in our expansion strategy,” says Seibold. “Fitness Loft expands our offering in the FSBP segment, strengthening our ability to further scale, both through buy-and-build and organically in the fastest growing market segments, which we see as FSBP, boutique and boutique franchises.”

“We’ve always benefited from all acquisitions in terms of best practice sharing,” says Collinet. “Fitness Loft’s management team will stay on board for at least two years and we will learn a lot from each other.”