Nuffield Health, one of the UK’s leading not-for-profit healthcare organizations, announced that it will acquire 35 gym sites from Virgin Active. This transaction has been approved by both parties and is expected to complete in the third quarter of 2016.
With this transaction, Nuffield Health boosts the number of health and wellbeing gym sites to 112. This makes Nuffield Health a leading provider in the consumer health and wellbeing market and allows it to offer both fitness and a range of clinical services to even more individuals in the UK, in line with its charitable purpose.
According to Nuffield Health, the acquisition represents a significant next step in Nuffield Health’s strategy to provide a seamless connected health and wellbeing service across the UK, linking up fitness and wellbeing gyms with clinical services and hospitals.
The new sites will give Nuffield Health the capacity to offer broader health and wellbeing services such as fitness classes, personal training, swimming lessons, physiotherapy, health checks and nutritional therapy on-site as well as a helpful link to Nuffield Health hospitals.
Nuffield Health already operates 31 hospitals, 77 fitness and wellbeing gyms and over 200 corporate fitness and wellbeing centers.
“This acquisition is a great move forward and allows us to increase the pace of delivery of our strategy and our charitable purpose, to help people achieve, maintain and recover to the level of health and wellbeing they aspire to,” said Steve Gray, the CEO of Nuffield Health, in a press release. “Research shows that UK consumers have an appetite for direct access to a range of health and wellbeing services in their communities and this is also true of employers providing corporate fitness and wellbeing facilities for their staff. This acquisition will increase our reach in key sought-after locations and allow both members and non-members access to broader health and wellbeing services as well as proximity to Nuffield Health hospitals. I’m delighted to welcome new members and teams to the Nuffield Health family and firmly believe that they will benefit from our broader health and wellbeing model.”
“This is a positive deal with a compelling rationale for both ourselves and Nuffield Health,” said Paul Woolf, chief executive of Virgin Active Group, in a press release. “We believe that the success of these clubs will continue under Nuffield Health and are pleased that the members and club teams will be transferred, which was a very important consideration for us.”
Upon completion, the acquired sites will switch over and begin trading as Nuffield Health. At that point members of the Virgin Active gyms being acquired will have their membership automatically transferred to Nuffield Health.
This article is a press release contributed by Nuffield Health.
