💪Virgin Active Ltd. is Looking Unfit 💪
The U.S. has been quiet and the pandemic stifled travel and so we find ourselves wistful for far flung places. There's some action there, it seems.
Source: Getty Images
Take Britain for example. Per Bloomberg:
A record 35% of U.K. companies issued profit warnings last year, according to a report by the consulting firm EY. There was also a surge in the number of companies issuing three or more profit warnings in a 12-month period, a warning sign for insolvency.
One company, in particular, caught our eye:
Looks like some lenders — namely, Lloyds Banking Group — feel similarly about Virgin Active Ltd. Per SkyNews on January 20, “Britain's biggest high street lender is to extricate itself from a syndicate of lenders to Virgin Active, the struggling gym chain set up by Sir Richard Branson's business empire.” And Lloyds wasn’t the only shop jumping ship, “City sources said on Wednesday that another of Virgin Active's seven-strong lending syndicate was also planning to offload its position, although the identity of the other bank was unclear.” The fitness chain is currently in the market for rescue financing to outlast the pandemic. Lloyds and the other unnamed aforementioned member of the lending syndicate clearly don’t seem eager to wait around for the end to come. Indeed, per SkyNews on January 30:
“Lenders to Virgin Active are preparing for a fight over the future of one of Britain's biggest gym chains as its owners draw up a radical blueprint to help it survive the pandemic. Sky News has learnt that a syndicate of roughly half a dozen banks held a beauty parade of financial advisers this week to negotiate a restructuring of the company….” (emphasis in original)
This news set the chain up for a barbell drop to the head: the company got thrashed in the market. The company’s term loan plummeted 17% recently from 88 to around 73. The company has approximately 238 clubs worldwide with a large presence in places hit particularly hard by the pandemic: South Africa (😬), Italy (😬😬) and the UK (😬😬😬).
Perhaps the lenders and the company can hold work out talks while they work out. 🙄