10/04/2001
Golf, health and fitness club operator Crown Sports announced four major
acquisitions with its full-year figures today as the company sets its
sights on further deals. James Crux reports.
'This industry is ripe for consolidation', claims Crown chairman Jeff
Chapman, 'and we would like to be a consolidator in it'. In this spirit,
Crown has acquired Axis, another health and fitness club owner, for £8.94
million, bringing four clubs and 9,800 additional members into the group,
and clinched the £3.4 million purchase of Fitness Express, bringing in a
further fourteen clubs with over 15,000 members.
As recently as last June, Crown Sports was called Golf Club Holdings and
was listed on Aim. Six months later it had changed its name to Crown
Sports, and moved to the Full List in February of this year.
The company bought Dragons Health Clubs on 29 December and so the
full-year figures to 31 December 2000 are meaningless and almost entirely
reflect the old Golf Club Holdings structure. Pro forma figures showed a
pre-tax profit of £1.8 million on sales of £19.7 million.
Chapman is bullish on boosting membership. Crown has 65,000 members at
present and he says the company is 'looking to have 100,000 by the end of
the year', with 250,000 the target for 2002.
Two other deals have created a new division within Crown - the products
division. In the first, Crown paid £2 million for 70 per cent of The
Winning Line, which provides horse-racing information to subscribers and
the syndication and management of racehorse ownership for customers.
The second deal came last week, when Crown announced the £8 million
acquisition of sports and leisure publishing business Information
Australia, and revealed that Olympic gold medallist Sally Gunnell would
develop a range of healthy living publications with the group. Directors
hinted that the group was in talks for a tie-up with a famous professional
golfer.
The market seemed unsure of today's announcements and the share price
was static at its 2001 low of 26.5p. The high so far this year is 32.5p.
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