UK - LA Fitness buys Crown Sports

Guy
20 February 2006

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The directors of Crown Sports and the board of the LA Fitness, a Mid-Ocean Partners portfolio company, have announced that they have reached agreement on the terms of a recommended cash offer for the entire issued and to be issued share capital of Crown Sports. The offer will be 13.2 pence in cash for each Crown Sports share, valuing the entire issued share capital of Crown Sports at approximately ТЃ38.4m.

The offer represents a premium of approximately 70% to the closing price of 7.75 pence per Crown Sports share on 16 February 2006, the latest practicable date prior to the date of this announcement.

The Crown Sports directors and certain other Crown Sports shareholders have irrevocably undertaken to accept the offer in respect of 264,273,623 Crown Sports shares representing approximately 90.9% of the existing issued ordinary share capital of Crown Sports. These undertakings will cease to be binding only if the offer lapses or is withdrawn and remain binding in the event that a higher competing offer is received. The offeror intends to declare the offer wholly unconditional once the receiving agent has confirmed to the offeror that valid acceptances have been received in respect of 90% of the nominal value of the Crown Sports shares to which the offer relates.

Christian Purslow, acting chairman of LA Fitness and a MidOcean partner said: 'We are delighted that LA Fitness is already delivering on its strategic plan to drive consolidation in the UK health and fitness industry. Dragons and LA Fitness have similar product-market strategies and are an excellent fit. We are committed to working with the management team to grow our network of full service, conveniently located, value for money gyms which is the market segment where we see most growth opportunities'.

Fred Turok, chief executive of LA Fitness added: 'The purchase of Crown Sports is an excellent strategic acquisition for LA Fitness in terms of business model and culture and we are looking forward to working with and integrating the Crown Sports team. It is an important building block in our objective to become the leading value and convenience operator in the health and fitness market. With MidOcean’s support we are now one step closer to realising this ambition and in doing so helping fight the growing obesity epidemic by offering convenient, affordable fitness to a wider audience.'