Pure Gym suffers £200m loss due to Covid closures
Pure Gym suffered losses of almost £200m last year after the budget fitness chain was forced to close all of its sites for several months during coronavirus lockdowns.
The gym company reported a loss of £198.4m in 2020, compared to a loss of £39.6m in the previous year.
Revenue dropped 39 per cent from £447m to £270m, and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation plummeted 92 per cent to £11m due to the impact of closures.
However Pure Gym said today that consumer demand has bounced back since it reopened its 240 gyms in England last week, including ten new sites.
It said there had been tens of thousands of new members, and more than 1m workouts completed in the first week since reopening.
It reached “levels that are below, but not dissimilar to, the equivalent week in 2019 measured on a like for like basis”.
Pure Gym closed 12 sites during the year, going from 504 to 492 gyms, and shed 200,000 members due to the impact of the pandemic, taking customer numbers from 1.7m to 1.5m.
Pure Gym chief executive Humphrey Cobbold said: “Whilst the financial trading performance was, frankly, awful that was out of our hands.
“Our cost control and cash management was exemplary and the actions we took and support received from governments, equity investors and debt providers gives us significant liquidity to not only survive, but importantly now also resume our strategy.
“We are without doubt a stronger business for having weathered the storm. We are particularly pleased to have received an unqualified audit opinion with no material uncertainty over going concern and emerge from this crisis with real optimism and exciting plans for the future.”