One of Scandinavia’s leading health club chain, SATS, which acquired Finnish market leader Club Wellness 38 last July, has recently opened three new outlets.

Wellness-SATS currently has nine clubs around Finland; three in Helsinki, three in Oulu and one each in Jyväskylä, Turku and Espoo.

Its flagship development, located in the central railway station of the capital, Helsinki, was opened in November 2003. The 2,000sq m club has since acquired 1,500 members.

The latest addition, a 2,000sq m club in Oulu, was opened to public in February and has already attracted a membership of 1,000.

All the Wellness-SATS sites are fully-equipped by Precor.

CEO of Wellness-SATS, Jouni Herranen said: “Finland is currently in the midst of a boom in health and fitness. Although the Finns are very active when it comes to sports and health related matters, the recent mass-migration to cities has created a need for one-stop health clubs.”

“Our strategy is to serve that need by concentrating in the major cities – and in central locations. This is partly because people in Finland are still getting acquainted with the concept of modern health clubs,” he said.

The company’s long-term goal is to have around 20 Wellness-SATS clubs in Finland, although Herranen said that the time-span depends on “a number of factors, both financial and operational”.

SATS group owns and operates over 100 clubs in Scandinavia and has more than 260,000 members, with around 13,000 of them in Finland. Details: www.sats.com