Planet Fitness Buys Its Way Into Portugal, One Judgment-Free Zone at a Time

Planet Fitness keeps finding new places to plant its purple-and-yellow flag. The gym chain reported third-quarter revenue of $360 million, up 9% from a year ago, and used the moment to announce its entry into a sixth international market: Portugal, by way of acquiring Be-Fit, a 25-club, roughly 80,000-member platform, for about $114.8 million.

System-wide same-club sales grew a modest 1.5%, enough for the company to nudge up its full-year outlook, with CEO Colleen Keating saying results came in "ahead of our expectations" alongside adjusted EBITDA margins of roughly 41%. The chain opened 33 new clubs in the quarter, split between franchisee-owned and corporate locations, bringing its global total to 2,962, and the company layered on a fresh $500 million stock buyback authorization.

Planet Fitness also said it is reviewing refranchising options for its remaining corporate-owned clubs, the kind of move a company makes when it would rather collect royalty checks than run a gym itself. The $10-a-month membership built an empire on judgment-free workouts; the balance sheet increasingly runs on judgment-free real estate decisions.

Source: Planet Fitness, Inc.

Kyle Duford, Founder & Editor, BRNDWIRE. More from Kyle →