The sportswear tycoon Dave Whelan is heading for a showdown with landlords over plans for an overhaul of his Health First gyms empire that may comprise web site closures and steep lease cuts.
Sky Information has learnt that Mr Whelan, best-known because the earlier proprietor of Wigan Athletic Soccer Membership, is working with advisers on a restructuring plan for the properly being golf gear chain he bought in 2016.
Property commerce sources acknowledged this weekend that the proposals may be formally unveiled as shortly as subsequent month.
One landlord acknowledged they anticipated that roughly 1 / 4 of Health First’s roughly 45 UK golf gear may be earmarked for closure.
One other doubtlessly affected property-owner acknowledged they anticipated Mr Whelan’s group to hunt lease reductions of as quite a bit as 90% all through a couple of of its remaining gyms.
Based on most likely probably the most simply recently filed accounts for Health First Golf equipment, the company misplaced higher than £10m throughout the yr to 31 March 2021, although its effectivity all through that interval was hammered by the pandemic.
Its accounts for the following yr for the time being are nearly a month overdue.
The majority of Health First’s operations are in London, with golf gear in distinguished locations just like Oxford Circus, Baker Road and Liverpool Road.
Filings current that earlier this month, Teneo Monetary Advisory was appointed administrator to Health First (Curzons) Restricted, a corporation affiliated to the broader group.
Additional particulars of Mr Whelan’s proposals had been unclear this weekend, whereas the have an effect on on jobs on the agency due to potential well being membership closures would possibly moreover not be ascertained.
The tycoon, who primarily based JJB Sports activities, which grew to turn into actually one among Britain’s biggest extreme avenue sporting objects retailers, acquired an enormous chunk of Health First’s UK operations seven years previously as part of a separate restructuring of the multinational gyms operator.
Below completely totally different possession, Health First had beforehand shed dozens of struggling UK golf gear by way of a mechanism typically often known as a corporation voluntary affiliation in 2013.
Using a restructuring plan fairly than a CVA to implement its latest overhaul would possibly present controversial amongst affected landlords.
Virgin Lively, one different gyms group, deployed a restructuring plan to strain by way of a financial restructuring in 2021 as a result of it teetered on the purpose of collapse.
The mechanism permits companies to ‘cram down’ collectors to strain proposals by way of even once they vote in the direction of them.
Mr Whelan himself has moreover expert the sharp end of the properly being and well being sector as opponents has grown, notably amongst cheaper operators.
In 2020, DW Sports activities, the chain he primarily based in 2009 after shopping for 50 web sites from JJB Sports activities, crashed into administration, citing the have an effect on of Covid-19 lockdowns.
Roughly half of the company’s 1,700-strong workforce was saved when Mr Whelan’s rival, the Sports activities Direct tycoon Mike Ashley, engineered a deal for his Frasers Group to buy merely over half of DW Sports activities’ web sites.
The gyms commerce has confronted extraordinary turbulence in current instances, with the pandemic and hovering vitality costs having a marked have an effect on on operators’ ability to earn money.
The Gymnasium Group, a London-listed chain, has seen its shares halve over the past yr, and it now has a market capitalisation of merely £185m.
Mr Whelan couldn’t be reached for comment, whereas Health First didn’t reply to a sequence of emailed requests for comment despatched on Friday and Saturday.
