January gym bunnies have sent visits to this budget chain soaring
One of the UK's fastest-growing budget gym chains received a massive boost during January, as exercise enthusiasts bent on achieving their New Year's resolutions went crazy for cardio and whacky for workouts.
Pay-as-you-go The Gym Group said the number of people with visiting its branches rose 21 per cent in the year to January – that's an increase of 379,000 people.
In fact, the company, which has 89 gyms across the UK, dubbed it "Britain's fittest January on record".
And it turns out much of the growth was driven by millennials: the average age of its members was 32, it said.
It also cited research by Mintel, which suggested the market for health and fitness clubs is set to grow 20 per cent by 2020.
Last month the fitness chain said it had cut its net debts to £5.3m, from £7.1m the year before, adding 17 new branches.
However, in recent weeks the company's shares have fallen as low as 165p, way below the 195p it floated at in November 2015.
Meanwhile, in October rival budget gym chain PureGym binned plans for a £190m IPO, citing concerns about market volatility.
At the time, chief executive Humphrey Cobbold said: "Given the challenging IPO market conditions, the board has decided not to proceed with a listing despite the strong interest shown by potential investors."
Read more: This is how much you're going to spend on getting fit in 2017