Refurbished clubs are seeing NPS scores of up to +28 per cent, whereas before some were worse than -30 per cent “Effective turnaround is about having a
five- or 10-year vision. There’s no point otherwise. Even if that’s outside of our investment timeline – which isn’t set in stone, incidentally – we have to think now about our growth story to pitch to the next owner, and we have to put the foundations in place to make that happen.”
Genuine partnership That potential new owner is some way down the line though, with the latest change of hands only taking place at the end of March 2015: a management buyout, with Barclays and Co-op exiting the business and the trio of Millman, Ley and Davidson investing their own personal funds, alongside a reported
August 2015 © Cybertrek 2015
£11.5m investment from private equity firm NorthEdge Capital – a private equity firm brought in by RooGreen specifically to drive growth. Ley is quick to stress, however, that
it will be measured growth: “It’s very easy to get giddy, but we have to make sure the house remains in order. That’s been a big cultural change and I’m very confident that, with Richard’s leadership and the structures we have in place, operational discipline will always be central to our DNA.” Ley remains chair and shareholder
of Total Fitness, with Millman as CEO. The two men – and to a lesser extent Davidson, who remains on the board as a silent investor – will now work closely
with NorthEdge to take Total Fitness into the next phase of its life. “The biggest mistake private equity
guys and management teams make – and it happens a lot – is that they see it as ‘them and us’,” says Ley. “That’s a very unhealthy dynamic. It needs to be a genuine partnership, and I’m not being all fluffy with that word. That’s NorthEdge’s ethic and is the key reason I approached them.” And Ley is, it seems, more than
happy to remain active in that partnership: “I just love being involved in the business and I’m incredibly proud. I’m happy to admit it – I was so wrong back in 2012 when I hoped the project wouldn’t be Total Fitness.”
Read Health Club Management online at
healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital 35
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