Good morning and welcome to the 2025 four-year results presentation for the Gym Group. Thank you for making the time to join us in the room and on the dial-in. After the presentation, we'll take your questions in the room first and then from the webcast. Our CFO Luke Tate and I will be doing the presenting today. And here's what we plan to cover. I'll start with an overview before handing to Luke to share our 2025 four-year financial results. I'll then provide a progress report on our next chapter growth plan and summarise before taking your questions. So, starting with the overview. And I'm pleased to report strong progress for the full year 2025. Closing membership was up 4%, with revenue for the period up 8%, 3% on a like-for-like basis. With this performance and strong management of costs, EBITDA less normalised rent was up 19% of 56.7 million. The market we operate in grew again in 2025. UK penetration is up to a new high around 17% and we expect this growth to continue. In line with our next chapter growth plan, we've continued to strengthen the core of the business with mature site ROEIC up a further 2 percentage points to 27%. We also accelerated our site rollout, opening 16 new sites in 2025 at the top end of guidance. We expect to open at least 20 in 2026, again all funded from free cash flow. And finally, I'm pleased to report a strong start to 2026 with 9% revenue growth for the January-February peak trading period. so the momentum continues giving us confidence as we look ahead i'll now hand over to luke for the financial update thank you will good morning so starting with a summary of our financial kpis the key revenue kpis which we announced in january have both shown good growth year on year
we had average members of 945 000 during the year up four percent versus last year and average revenue per member per month was £21.60, also up 4% on prior year. As a result, revenue for the year was £244.9 million, up 8% on prior year. The revenue growth has dropped through well to profit, with EBITDA less normalised rent, the £56.7 million, up 19% or £9 million year on year, and £1.2 million ahead of consensus. Statutory profit before tax was £7.4 million up 4.9 million or nearly 200% year on year. Free cash flow of 38.3 million was up 10% versus prior year and enabled the opening of 16 new sites and a net debt reduction of 2 million to 59.3 million reducing the net debt to EBITDA leverage ratio to one times down by 0.3 times versus December 2024. We'll now look at each of these key financial metrics in more detail on the following slides. Starting with the income statement, EBITDA grew strongly in the year, up 19% versus last year. Revenue was $244.9 million, up by $18.6 million year on year. The acceleration of new openings has resulted in over 70% of the revenue growth coming from the new openings. Overall costs came in slightly better than expectations. Cost of sales were in line with prior year at 2.9 million. Site costs were well controlled with the 5.8 million increase reflecting the new openings and a 1% increase in light for light site costs. We'll expand on the key drivers shortly but we benefited from lower electricity rates in 2025 which offset increases such as the living wage and NI. The central cost increase year on year slowed further in the second half as guided, with full year costs as a percentage of revenue dropping by 0.4% to 11.3%. The 5% increase year on year relates principally to the annual inflationary salary increase and a number of investments in delivering the next chapter growth plan. In 2026 we expect to see further operating leverage and central cost margin to drop below 11 percent. Normalised rent increased by 2.6 million reflecting new site growth with an underlying increase of 4 percent. As a result EBITDA was 56.7 million up 9 million year on year with a strong drop through of incremental revenue to profit. EBITDA margin was 23% up two percentage points on prior year. Moving on down the P&L EBITDA growth converted well to PBT and EPS growth. The non-cash charge for share-based payments increased to 5.5 million predominantly reflecting the delay in granting awards in 2024 and the recent strong financial performance. Depreciation and amortisation of 62.4 million grew by 2.3 million due to the estate growth and investment in technology. Net financing costs of 20.4 million remain essentially in line with prior year due to a reduction in bank and finance lease interest of setting an increase in property lease interest. The decrease year-on-year in bank and finance lease interest was driven by lower average net debt during the year and lower interest rates. It's worth noting that the IFRS 16 property lease charges are 2.9 million higher than the cash rent costs and they're expected to align in around 2029. Adjusted profit before tax was 10.6 million up 7 million or nearly 200 percent year on year and non-underlying items of 3.2 million was 2.1 million higher than prior year. This is due to the non-capex costs relating to the implementation of the new member management and payment systems due to go live this summer. There was no P&L or cash tax in 2025. The deferred tax asset will start to unwind in 2026, but no cash tax is expected until 2029. Finally, profit after tax for the year was 7.4 million, three million higher than prior year. Revenue grew by eight percent in the year. Average revenue per member per month grew by four percent. This was principally down to a combination of yield increases in the Like for Like estate and the optimisation of yield in the new site openings including coming off introductory headline rate discounts. The average headline rate of a standard membership was £25.64 up by £1.11 year on year. Like for like revenue was up 3% in line with guidance with the average membership remaining at 100% year on year and the average yield increasing by 3%. Looking at site costs in more detail we've been able to control site costs well despite the ongoing inflationary environment. In the first half like for like site costs were actually down by one percent. As mentioned earlier this was principally driven by a further reduction in electricity commodity prices and our energy optimization program. For example we now have installed 210 voltage optimization units across the estate. In the second half site cost inflation was three percent bringing the full year increase to one percent which was slightly lower than guidance of 2%. The increase was driven by a 44% increase in the non-commodity element of the electricity cost in Q4, as well as three quarters of NI and UBR increases. These cost increases will annualise during 2026, and therefore we expect the cost inflation in the first half to be higher than in the second half. Our cost optimisation programme will continue to offset increases elsewhere. For example, we see potential for significant energy optimisation through air handling unit sensors, as well as the last phase of the VA rollout. We recently launched an academy with a specialist training company that helps staff our gyms more efficiently. And we also successfully appealed 116 of the 2023 ratings list valuations last year. However, as we guide in September, we do expect site cost inflation to be higher in 2026 until the non-commodity electricity rate in particular annualises in Q4 this year. This will then remain unchanged until October 27. Commodity rates have also been fixed until October 2027. Turning now to cash flow, strong cash flow generation in the year enabled us to self-fund our expansionary capex, buy shares for the EBT and pay down debt. The working capital inflow of 5.3 million reflects the cash generative nature of our business model, careful cash management and a higher proportion of pay up front memberships. After deducting the cash spend on maintenance capex of 17.3 million, operating cash flow was 44.7 million. The cash element of non-underlying items was 1.8 million, bank and lease interest was 4.6 million. As mentioned earlier due to losses incurred during Covid and accelerated capital allowances we do not expect to pay any cash tax until 2029. Free cash flow was 38.3 million up 10% year on year giving a free cash flow yield based on recent share price of around 12%. Expansionary capex was 33.9 million and after refinancing an EBT share purchase costs net debt reduced by 2 million year on year. We continue to invest to grow the business and ensure a well-maintained estate. Total cash capex in the year was 51.2 million, up from 40 million in the prior year. Maintenance capex across both property and tech was 17.3 million in the year. Property maintenance of 14.7 million was 6% of revenue. Tech and data maintenance capex of 2.6 million was spent on hardware including cctv upgrades and on our data infrastructure expansionary capex was 33.9 million with the main spend being on new sites as well as as we opened 16 new sites last year in line with the top end of our guidance tech and data expansionary spend relates principally to investments in our digital assets to enable next chapter growth initiatives such as product add-ons and our conversion optimisation programme. Spend on upgrading our member management and payment systems was £4.2 million and will unlock functionality around member referrals, reductions in payment failure rates and new retention strategies. The project is expected to complete in 2026. Turning now to net debt, non-property net debt was £59.3 million at year end, down 2 million from December 2024. The net debt consisted of 62 million of bank debt and 0.3 million of finance lease debt and 3 million of cash. As a result of the reduction in net debt, the leverage ratio reduced to one times, down from 1.3 times at year end 2024 and 1.7 times at the end of 2023. Given the further acceleration in new openings planned in 2026 funded from free cash flow we do not expect any further reduction in net debt at this year end. Moving on to ROIC. ROIC for the mature estate increased by two percentage points to 27% last year benefiting from the strong EBITDA growth in the year. This two percentage points increase was on the back of a four percentage points increase the year before. If the 13 workforce dependent sites are excluded, the mature site ROIC increases to 30%. We expect further progress this year on mature site ROIC and, as a result, have continued confidence in returning to 30% ROIC over the medium term. The new sites are performing well, with the sites opened in 2022 delivering an average ROIC of 30% last year. The small 2023 cohort is on track to deliver an average ROIC of 25%, with one site having been impacted by an unusual level of competitors' openings. The 2024 cohort of 12 gyms is trading well and on track to deliver ROIC of 30%. And although early in their tenure, the 16 2025 sites are progressing well, with strong initial membership volume. Overall, our confidence remains high on returning 30% on new openings. We set out our planned capital allocation policy with our results in 2023, and we've delivered against it. Our first priority is to maintain the existing estate, and we guided to maintenance capex spend of circa 6% of revenue. Our second priority was to keep net debt to EBITDA leverage below two times. As at December 2025, it was one times. thirdly we'd prioritise organic new site openings and in January we increased our rollout plan to circa 75 sites over the next three years from free cash flow and finally we would return any excess capital to shareholders in January we commenced a 10 million share buyback and to date we purchased and cancelled 1.1 million shares we'll continue to operate to this capital allocation policy going forwards. Finally, turning to current trading and outlook. Revenue year-to-date at the end of February was up 9% versus prior year, with average members up 4% and average revenue per member per month up 5%. Like-for-like was 3%. The run rate EBITDA, when adjusting for gyms open at the end of last year but not yet mature is circa 65 million we're planning to open 20 to 22 new gyms this year which in line of previous years will be second half weighted we expect to spend between 60 and 65 million on capex funded from free cash flow looking ahead for the full year we expect like-for-like sales growth of circa three percent and like-for-like site cost inflation of 3% to 4%, with the first half waiting. Our electricity rates are fixed until October 2027. Central costs are expected to drop below 11% of revenue this year, and as a result, we now expect 2026 EBITDA less normalised rent to be at the top end of analysts' forecast range.
And now I'll hand over to Will for the strategy update. thank you Luke in March 2024 I set out our next chapter growth plan and I wanted to give you another progress report firstly a reminder of the investment case sustained growth from free cash flow and why we think it's so compelling starting at 12 o'clock on the circle health and fitness is a large market that's benefiting from continued structural growth and in gyms the high value low cost sector is growing fast as with other categories we're benefiting from consumers appetite for no frills great value propositions and from new more committed generations of gym goers this winning proposition has high levels of customer satisfaction and is delivered by an advantaged labor light business model we also have multiple drives of growth listed on the right-hand side of the slide with detailed plans on each of them. Strong execution on those growth drivers is increasing returns in our existing estate, in turn funding the organic rollout of quality new sites. This virtuous circle of sustained growth is being powered by data and technology, two areas we continue to invest in as the foundation for any successful digital subscription business. UK consumers now spend £6.5 billion on gym memberships, with 11.3 million of us being members. That penetration continues to grow, with another strong increase in 2025 to 16.6%. And as you can see from the green bars, low-cost gym growth is strong. With a proposition that's high quality and affordable, we're introducing new generations of gym goers to something they really value and benefiting from continuing trade down from the mid-market. And in this growing market segment, we're one of two brands that account for around 80% of member share. And there are several consumer trends that support our continued growth. Consumers' fitness IQ is increasing all the time, meaning their use of a gym is ever more rounded and more engaged. They tell us they want to prioritise mental health and see gyms as an obvious way to do that. They want to feel and look strong, increasing the need for equipment you'll only find in a good gym. And amplified by the rise of social media, consumers are increasingly seeing the gym as part of their identity, lifestyle and social life. All this is creating increased demand for gyms and our advantage model best meets that need affordably and conveniently. We're also seeing the rise of GLP-1s which we see as a positive trend for two reasons. Firstly because GLP-1s are giving more people the confidence to come to the gym and secondly because of growing awareness that strength training protects muscle mass during the treatment period. This ever-growing engagement in fitness and gyms is particularly strong among Gen Z consumers and because they're so engaged they're prioritising fitness over anything else when it comes to discretionary spend and they now make up 44% of our membership base. This generation of consumers is one of the many reasons I'm optimistic for the gym group's future and will keep working hard to meet their needs going forward. Our simple, scalable proposition, based on value, convenience and results, is highly rated by our members, and the progress here continues. For any subscription business, usage is important, and we continue to see an uptick in visits per member. The proportion of members visiting us four times a month grew again in 2025, to 54.6% while the proportion of members rating us five out of five in satisfaction surveys has risen year on year to a remarkable 62%. So we're growing in a growing part of a growing market and we have a fundamentally strong proposition. We also have a clear growth plan that everyone in our company is focused on and I wanted to give you a further progress report on that plan. As a reminder, there are three elements to the plan. Strengthen the Core is about increasing returns from our existing sites and members, driving growth in like-for-like revenue and free cash flow. It's the pillar of the plan that's helped us to deliver a six percentage point improvement in mature site ROIC over the last two years to 27% and will underpin further growth in that measure. Strengthening the core has also supported growth in free cash flow and that in turn allows us to accelerate our organically funded rollout of quality sites in the UK. These first two cogs are where our executional focus is for the time being because we see so much headroom here. We do however continue to assess opportunities to broaden our growth over the longer term and i'll return to that later in the presentation so turning to the first part of the plan we continue to strengthen the core of the business in 2025 across revenue management acquisition and retention on revenue management we continue to increase prices in a measured data-driven way we also supported yield by adding new guest pass and multi-site add-ons to our standard product and further optimised off-peak pricing, unlocking incremental revenue in target sites. On acquisition, we made significant further progress on brand memorability, social media reach and web conversion. And on retention, we saw average member tenure increase again in 2025, supported by several initiatives. Progress here included 16% growth in members taking a long-term product, for example 9 or 12 months, a 39% increase in early life kickstart inductions and strong engagement with our market leading app. I'll briefly expand on a few of these areas starting with pricing. The data on this slide and the next clearly shows the ongoing pricing opportunity we benefit from. Our members pay around £25 a month for a large well-equipped gym that's run by a friendly expert team and open 24-7. It's not surprising members score us so highly on value for money. And while we're similarly priced to our key high-value low-cost competitors, the mid-market is 60% higher. Our market segment has a clear advantage on value, supporting pricing headroom and ongoing trade down from the mid-market. And this ongoing pricing opportunity is also clear in our consumer data. The graph on the left-hand side of the slide is output from a large quantitative study we refresh annually with pricing experts SKP. It plots perceived value on the y-axis against perceived price on the x-axis and shows that we, along with other high-value low-cost players, remain underpriced with the opportunity to sit nearer or in the blue corridor shown on the chart. And the table on the right-hand side is also reassuring. It shows that while we increased prices in 2025, so did our competitors, meaning the headroom we can exploit in competing locations actually grew. One of the ways we can add perceived value supporting our pricing strategy is to further strengthen and modernize our brand after research with our core gen z audience we've evolved our visual identity and tone of voice rolling out the new approach gradually and cost effectively across web app marketing campaigns and of course our gyms increasing brand awareness also brings new prospects into our e-commerce journey and we've seen another set of encouraging improvements on unprompted awareness and with that growing brand awareness we're increasing the number of people coming into our web buying journey and with over 10 million non-member traffic starting that buying journey in 2025 small improvements to conversion rate make a big difference. I've talked about our web conversion program before with our e-commerce team running multiple A-B tests at any given time to increase conversion and as you can see we saw some good results from this in 2025 with more to come this year. We also have a team who work tireless to tirelessly to improve our already sector-leading app. The app supports our retention programme engaging existing members. 2025 enhancements included more personalised onboarding for new members, more digital workouts and better dashboards to track your progress. And the app isn't just a retention tool, it's proving to be a sales tool as well. 93% of the new add-on sales we had last year were via the app. It's also growing as a convenient channel for past members to rejoin us. So that's a few examples of the many ways we're strengthening the core of the business, supporting like-for-like revenue, mature site returns and free cash flow. And in line with our strategy and capital allocation policy, we're currently deploying that free cash flow to accelerate the rollout of quality sites in the UK. And in 2024, PwC estimated 10 years plus of UK white space for low-cost gyms, so the opportunity here is compelling. We opened 16 new sites in 2025 at the top end of our guidance. We've continued to be rigorous in identifying the characteristics of our best performing sites, some of which are set out on the left hand side of the slide. We've then applied that formula in a disciplined way to the 16 sites we chose to open. We're taking a measured returns focused approach to roll out. And what about the gyms themselves? Across the estate we have great gyms with strong customer ratings and improving returns. But we identified headroom to elevate the gym experience further, driving those high value perceptions and supporting sustained revenue growth. The evolved approach is being applied to all new sites and, as I'll cover in a moment, also being rolled out into our mature estate. The work to do this, which included input from a world-leading retail design agency, was based on five key principles set out on the slide. Here's a short video showcasing the new approach. we've had fantastic feedback from members on the new on the new design template and we're very encouraged by the performance of the 2025 sites so far where we've been open long enough to get a read these sites are building membership 22% faster than our 2022-23 cohort and getting even higher customer ratings. And after just three months, these sites are already at 92% of the member volume needed to deliver a 30% ROIC. So we're seeing accelerating performance in new sites as well as growing returns in the mature estate. And that performance has supported our decision to accelerate further our cash-funded rollout. We opened 28 sites in the last two years with maturation of those sites, generating a run rate EBITDA less normalised rent of £65 million. Looking ahead, as we said in our January trading statement, we're targeting 75 new sites over the next three years and will open no less than 20 this year. We have strong visibility of the 2026 pipeline, though we do expect openings to be H2 weighted again this year. And as per our capital allocation policy, we'll continue to invest in our mature estate to keep it as well maintained and as competitive as possible. And we're working hard to maximise the return on this capital. Firstly, by prioritising mature site investment in a data-driven way. We've developed a detailed prioritisation matrix, which now includes a statistical model estimating likely member headroom at site level. And once the site is prioritised, we refurbish it in the new design template and support it with local relaunch marketing. I'm excited by the results we've seen to date with this approach, with strong member feedback, growth in volume and increasing prices. And as a result, these refurbs are on track to deliver a 30% return on the capital we're investing in them so that's a progress report on the first two elements of the plan in 2025 and i'm looking forward to making further progress in these areas in 2026 turning to the third cog of the plan we continue to look at ways to broaden our growth we're investigating new channels new products and new markets and we're looking for returns that align with core competencies are highly incremental and have strong returns. Given the quality of the returns in the core business the bar for anything additional is extremely high. So far we've looked in detail at a few opportunities but have been disciplined about saying no if our criteria aren't fully met. We have however launched a new channel in partnership with Wellhub, a fitness and wellness platform accessing over 400 employers in the uk we piloted this channel testing it for high levels of incrementality and have now rolled it out nationally performance continues to track ahead of business case so that's the progress report on our next chapter growth plan and i'll now summarize the next chapter growth plan has created strong momentum We've consistently grown revenue, margin and EBITDA less normalised rent. We've also been able to accelerate site openings while reducing our leverage ratio. And I'm pleased to say our teams are doing all this in a sustainable way, creating social value, engaged employees and new jobs, while also reducing our energy consumption per gym. As I said at the beginning, I'm confident that we'll continue to deliver our investment case of sustained growth from free cash flow. Firstly, we have an advantaged business model that delivers exceptional value for money in a market with structural growth. And we're attracting a new generation of gym goers for whom fitness in the gym is increasingly non-discretionary. Secondly, we have multiple like-for-like growth opportunities in the existing estate and strong white space to roll out new sites. Against that backdrop, in 2025, we delivered 19% growth in EBITDA less normalised rent and another strong step forward on mature site ROIC to 27%. We're accelerating our self-funded rollout to 75 sites over the next three years and in line with our capital allocation policy have commenced a £10 million share buyback. Looking to 2026, we expect EBITDA less normalised rent to be at the top end of analysts' forecast range. And I'm pleased to report a strong start to the year with 9% year-on-year revenue growth for the Jan-Feb peak trading period.
Speaker 7
Finally, I'd like to thank our committed expert people for delivering these strong results. the gym group benefits from a fantastic team and it's a real pleasure to be a part of that team thank you and we will now take your questions thank you very much if you would like to ask a question for people in the room raise your hand and wait for the microphone to come to you and please state your name and company if you are watching online please press the raise hand button to ask a question or alternatively please type your question in the q a section and this will
Speaker 8
be read into the room i am now handing back to will or for questions in the room right uh ross brought from rbc uh three please uh let's go one other times i've got them written on different pages um the proportion of of members scoring you five out of five at 62 percent clearly a very good score could you give any insight into what makes people score you less than five out of five um as number one yeah i mean 92 percent score us four out of five or five out of uh out of five i mean and and the the the metrics that are important around uh that choice would be um principally
um friendly expert people really good really good equipment clean safe um that those sorts of those sorts of things so that those sort of drivers of of satisfaction thanks um and could you just remind me where we're up to in terms of refurbing the mature sites to the new style and if you can tell us anything about any changes to volumes you've seen at those sites yeah so so as i um We're saying the refurb sites that we've done already are performing well. We've seen some improvement in volume. We've been able to put some pricing through and we're seeing better satisfaction. So they're tracking nicely towards the 30% return on the incremental capital that we've put in. And then in terms of the estate as a whole, across new and refurbed, we've now got, I think, 37 sites in the new format. and we'll expect to double that this year as we roll it out fine and then number three um you talked about the 2025 new sites 92 of volumes required to deliver the 30 roic what is required from price um obviously because you've just given sort of a higher volume percentage there yeah so we we we have introductory offers um and and the volume growth is faster than it ever ever has been and then we you know customers step on to full price um so that's essentially the model um but with that uh pace of volume uh to to that 92 percent i think you'd have pretty good confidence that as customers step up to to full price you get to the 30 percent and beyond on that cohort thanks very much um yeah doug's jacket pure hunt um just on the expansion um has there been any sort of change looking into 2026 in terms of the size of openings and the weighting you're having towards london because obviously london has been doing very well in the last year or two uh yes so um in terms of uh size it it will i think it will sort of net a sort of you know similar uh level to previous years i think we sort of talk about sort of 14 15 000 square feet being the average um but there's a there'll again be a variation around that we'll open sites up to sort of you know best part of 20 000 square feet and down to just below uh 10 and then london weighting will be a bit lower i think this year um than it has been in the last in the last two but not not hugely last question for me in terms of the advertising campaign you had uh do you get any measurement coming out of that in terms of the success it has been and what's your plan for that going forward yeah so we ran that for the sort of january february peak so sort of the first time we've run it and and we'll we'll have a sort of pca on it in the next a post campaign analysis on it in the next couple of uh in the next couple of weeks but we've seen some efficiency on on cpa so i think that would be encouraging about its sort of cut through uh and performance and i think we'd we plan to continue with that theme of for every group there's a gym group uh good morning jack hummings at berenberg and my first question is just on the openings i think you said circa 20 in january and you said at least 20 and i think the presentation said 20 to 22 so um kind of what's giving you the confidence in that number and can you maybe share any details in terms of how many you are on site at the moment um shadowing one by one yeah so on on that one um we we've opened uh one uh we're on site a further three and exchanged on a further eight so we've got 12 um secured i think in terms of um confidence um i think we've got good visibility of a of a sort of good pipeline uh for 20 uh 26 we sort of already i think know what those sites are going to be it's just um in some cases uh securing them um so yeah i think we've got reasonable levels of confidence around that perfect thank you um second question i think in the release and you put in the presentation as well you said about continuing to assess opportunities for the new adjacencies the partnership could you maybe just flesh that out a little bit would anything be outside of the core low-cost gym or is this just partnerships with other uh kind of like workplaces etc uh yeah so i mean we see lots of uh opportunities um as we said you know the sort of hurdle rate on them is extremely high given the sort of you know current deployment of uh of capital um and one of two things we've looked at them in in some detail i think the well hub thing is quite illustrative of the sort of approach as in it's a a channel that's genuinely incremental it's low distraction for us the economics on them on the members that we get through that um channel are are good um and and it's obviously it's obviously pretty close to the core of what we do so i think that's illustrative of the approach and we'll just keep assessing opportunities against that kind of high hurdle rate perfect and my final question is just on returns you've obviously seen really improving returns over the past couple of years and I think in the slide it was they're 30% excluding the workforce-dependent ones.
Is 30% a ceiling, or given the growth that you're seeing at the moment, could we actually start to move into the low 30s percentage on return on invested capital?
Good question, Jack. I think we still see pretty sustained opportunity on pricing, pricing headroom, value for money, and the increasingly sort of committed spend towards health and wellness, as in Gen Z and seeing gyms as non-discretionary. So I think whilst all of those align in the same way, I think we can continue to drive the gyms forwards.
Thank you very much. It's Anna Barnfather from Pamul Libram. Sort of a much higher level question, if I could. You mentioned the Pricewaterhouse 10-year runway for new gyms. I just wondered what that would imply for penetration rates in terms of population. And if you talk about demographic differences with younger people, what that means for penetration amongst that cohort.
And then I've got a follow-up on that if you have views. um i mean as you see from the chart what we've seen is you know somewhere between a sort of um sort of hot sort of what around i think sort of long-term average about half a percent extra penetration a year um but we still we actually saw a bit more last year but i think that's probably the sort of run rate you'd see as you as you progress through those 10 10 years and I think from a demographic point of view I think when you open in the white space probably the demographic mix is similar so I don't think there's a strong view either way
on how that demographic mix might shift as that white space evolves And just to follow up on GLP-1s there's a lot of studies that it's older women predominantly who are taking it are you seeing any any hard data on more older women coming in to lift weights um i i think that i think that's right i think that the the sort of uh our understanding of it is that that there is a uh a skew in in that um uh direction i mean it's it's a bit hard to to to measure because not everybody will sort of um disclose but um we did uh we do uh we do one of best ways to try and understand what's going on as we do it we're doing we're surveying our fitness trainers uh and uh in january 39 of our fitness trainers said they were training at least one person uh doing glp treatment and last june that was 24 so it's stepping up well within our membership uh base which is obviously broad because we've got nearly nearly a million members so so i would say it's growing in terms of our membership and we see that as positive for the for the reasons that we talked about in the in the presentation and look you know if we put together really um sort of responsible expert provision of advice and and training i think
we can appeal right across the sort of age spectrum when it comes to that um and related to that um and a question jack asked about sort of ancillary revenues um are there other things you're looking at that would go alongside that in terms of guidance counseling on nutrition and partnering with people who are prescribing yes yeah yeah that's that's the sort of thing what that's an area that we're exploring for sure yeah yeah hi there tim barrett from deutsche and you miss um question on yield please um the gap with peers low-cost peers isn't really isn't
Speaker 0
closing would your view be that it doesn't need to if there's a kind of rising tide in the high value low cost segment and the second question possibly for luke on um on the capex split it sounds like you're funding out of the the upgrades out of maintenance capital and still getting a 30 percent return on it which is really interesting is is there is that true and is is there kind of an argument for going faster on those thank you good questions tim so on on um uh on yield i think that uh we will do we we a b test everything we do and so we will you know follow our own strategy
to to maximize revenue but i think it is very helpful that the other main names in the sector are also moving forward quite positively in yield terms. So it's just providing us more and more headroom. I think we always said we thought that that would happen, that the headroom would open up as time went on, and it's continuing to do that. In fact, you saw in the data that Will presented that actually the headroom got a little bit more last year. So I think it's really helpful that that's happening, but I think we are also pursuing our own strategy, if you see what I mean. And then on the refurb CapEx, yeah, it's still quite early days, but we're seeing a nice sort of incremental membership movement on that refurb. And as we said, to this point, we've done all that refurb within the sort of refurb spend that we were planning anyway. I think the second part, which we're still learning, is what does it sort of give us permission to do in terms of price? and I think if we can combine that sort of volume uptick and a price uptick then I think it would really increase our confidence levels in getting an equivalent return on that investment as we get on new sites and then I think there is, as you say, an opportunity potentially to go a bit faster. Thank you.
