Lifestyle Family Fitness to be Acquired by LA Fitness

According to Stuart Goldman, managing editor for Club Industry magazine, LA Fitness, Irvine, CA, announced yesterday that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets for the remaining Lifestyle Family Fitness clubs in Florida.

The acquisition, if and when it closes, will result in the extinction of Lifestyle Family Fitness, which last year sold nine clubs to Life Time Fitness, Chanhassen, MN, and closed several other clubs.

Terms of the deal between LA Fitness and St. Petersburg, FL-based Lifestyle Family Fitness were not disclosed. The transaction is subject to various closing conditions. Sources told Club Industry in recent days that LA Fitness has been working out agreements as to which clubs to operate and which clubs to close.

"While the parties are hopeful that the transaction will be completed within the next several weeks, there can be no assurance as to when or whether a closing will occur," LA Fitness said in a statement.

Lifestyle Family Fitness has 33 clubs in operation in Florida. It had 55 clubs prior to last November's Life Time deal, terms of which were not disclosed. In addition to the nine clubs sold to Life Time (two each in Indianapolis, and Columbus, OH, and five in North Carolina), Lifestyle got out of the Ohio, Indiana and North Carolina markets entirely. It closed six clubs in Ohio, two in Indianapolis and one in North Carolina, while selling the remaining two Ohio clubs to its founder, Geoff Dyer. Lifestyle later closed two more clubs in Florida.

The Ledger of Lakeland, FL, reported Monday that news of the agreement was announced in a letter to Lifestyle employees. In the letter, Lifestyle said it is selling 32 clubs to LA Fitness and is closing the remaining club, the newspaper reported.

This is the second major acquisition for LA Fitness in the past seven months. Last November, LA Fitness acquired 171 Bally Total Fitness clubs for $153 million. That transaction was announced three days after the Lifestyle-Life Time announcement.

Lifestyle was No. 10 on Club Industry's Top 100 Clubs list last year with a reported $102.4 million in 2010 revenue, a 3 percent decrease from the previous year.

LA Fitness was No. 2 on last year's Top 100 Clubs list with an estimated $1 billion in 2010 revenue.

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