The Gym Group revenues rise; CFO Mark George to depart

The Gym Group reported a jump in full-year revenues on Thursday and hailed a good start to the new year as it announced the departure of chief financial officer Mark George, who is leaving to take up the same role at Wickes.

The gym operator has begun a formal process to identify and appoint a successor to George, who is expected to remain at the company until July.

The company also provided a brief update on trading, saying it ended the year in line with the board's expectations, with revenue for FY21 up 31.7% on the previous year at £106m.

It also said its performance so far in January has been encouraging. Although the emergence of the Omicron variant briefly impacted gym visits in December and early January, visits per member per week have since returned to normal pre-Covid levels.

Gym Group said it expects the trading environment to improve further once work from home guidance ends next week. As at 18 January, total membership had increased 8% from the end of December to 776,000.

Chief executive officer Richard Darwin said: "January is the month when many people set new health and fitness goals and has always been an important trading period for The Gym Group. We have been encouraged to see good levels of gym usage and new member acquisition so far this year.

"We continue to be driven by our purpose to break down barriers to fitness for all and look forward to providing our growing membership with many millions of gym visits in 2022."