{"id":841839,"date":"2025-11-16T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=841839"},"modified":"2025-11-14T16:12:36","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T14:12:36","slug":"the-uk-giant-that-has-most-of-its-locations-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/841839\/the-uk-giant-that-has-most-of-its-locations-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"The UK giant that makes billions thanks to South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Virgin Active is South Africa\u2019s largest gym brand, with a phone call from Nelson Mandela bringing the brand to the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richard Branson, the billionaire founder of Virgin, stated that his business model is centred on taking big and bold risks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the largest risks that the Virgin Group ever took was its expansion into South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mandela phoned Branson directly, asking him to help save 4,000 jobs across the struggling Health & Racquet Club chain in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Virgin Active only had three health clubs in the UK at the time, the request from Mandela would create a network of over 100.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was a large risk for a young and relatively untested brand like Virgin Active.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a massive financial outlay, but it was during a tough period,\u201d Matthew Bucknall, former Virgin Active CEO, said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere were a lot of voices within Virgin saying, \u2018Should you really be investing in a capital-intensive business like this? I said, \u2018I get all that, but we\u2019ll show you, it\u2019ll make money.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The investment was successful, with the acquisition of the clubs, saving jobs and turning it into a successful business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the Health & Racquet Clubs had been pitched for exercise fanatics, with a focus on strength and weight training, Virgin Active South Africa introduced a softer product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This would make health clubs more customer-friendly with a focus on group exercise classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were thus less intimidating for casual exercisers and helped the brand thrive in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Virgin Active now has 131 locations across Southern Africa, making it easily its largest market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given that there are two Virgin Actives in Namibia and only one in Botswana, South Africa remains the largest single country for Virgin Active, with 128 locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is far ahead of the UK\u2019s 31, Italy\u2019s 40 and Asia Pacific\u2019s 22.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa’s 631,000 members are also far higher than Italy\u2019s 192,000, the UK\u2019s 140,000 or Asia Pacific\u2019s 62,000, as of 30 September 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Southern Africa\u2019s revenue of \u00a3212 million is also larger than Italy\u2019s \u00a3152 million, the UK\u2019s \u00a3133 million and Asia Pacific\u2019s \u00a379 million despite the rand’s weakness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Virgin Active\u2019s ownership structure changed in 2015, when Brait purchased an 80% stake in the company for 682 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brait is a JSE-listed investment holding company backed by billionaire Christo Wiese. The Virgin Group retained a 20% share in the business following the deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In South Africa, Virgin Active has expanded beyond exercise following the acquisition of Nu and Kauai in a deal worth \u00a328.6 million (about R600 million) in March 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both health-focused retailers, which were part of The Real Foods Group, are now located across Virgin Active gyms nationwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of the deal, Dean Kowarski, founder of The Real Foods Group, became the Group CEO of Virgin Active in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Virgin Active is also now set for a new era, with Brait in the process of a complete wind-down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company aims to return capital to its shareholders via a structured exit of its significant investments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This began in 2023 with Premier Foods, the maker of Blue Ribbon, Snowflake, and more, which was unbundled and listed on the JSE in 2023 through an IPO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brait is also unbundling its stake in UK fashion retailer New Look,  while Ethos Capital has unblended its shares in Brait to its shareholders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Virgin Active is now Brait\u2019s largest investment company and is set to be unbundled in 2027<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brait decided to wait until Virgin Active was able to see a full recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, when health clubs could not even be accessed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brait\u2019s latest financials have shown strong recovery across Virgin Active, which are now back to pre-COVID-19 levels.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Virgin Active was only a small chain in the UK when Nelson Mandela asked billionaire Richard Branson to save the struggling Health & Racquet Club chain. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":841855,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[13185,23991,5281],"class_list":["post-841839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-kauai","tag-nu","tag-virgin-active"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=841839"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":843271,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841839\/revisions\/843271"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/841855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=841839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=841839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=841839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}