Popular Melbourne gym franchise F45 collapses after fitness chain’s share price plummets

Struggling fitness chain F45 has suffered another blow with the closure of a popular Melbourne branch.

OF45 Training Bayswater North, in the east of the city, went into liquidation on Sunday.

The gym, which is owned by Anthony Cselko Training Pty Ltd, has appointed Garth O’Connor-Price and Christopher Bergin of insolvency firm William Buck as liquidators.

The branch, which still claims to be open on Google and charges members $60 a week, has already been crowned the best studio in its division and its Instagram bio says “more than a gym.”

The F45 Bayswater North Facebook profile has been removed and the Instagram account is private.

F45 Bayswater North has been contacted for comment.

Several F45 branches across Australia have closed in recent months, with the company also suffering a major drop in its share price.

F45 CEO Tom Dowd, who was appointed in March this year to turn around the troubled training company, last month told Daily Mail Australia he was undeterred by scaling back his network.

“We are prepared to shrink to grow,” he said.

“Closing unproductive locations to add value to existing studios strengthens our system.

«An important aspect of our real estate strategy is to avoid excessive saturation.‘

F45, which started in 2012 with a gym in Sydney, has grown to have 1,555 studios and 2,801 franchises in 63 countries by mid-2021. The ultimate goal was to have 23,000 studios worldwide.

Hollywood actor Mark Wahlberg invested US$450 million in the business and celebrated its launch on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) with Australian co-founder Adam Gilchrist in mid-2021.

This financial backing put Gilchrist – who is not the famous cricketer of the same name – on the Australian Financial Review’s rich list.

A year later, the “fastest growing fitness business in the world,” valued at more than $2 billion, fell off the cliff.

In August 2022, the gym’s share price plummeted from $17.28 to just $3. It continued to fall, with shares trading for less than $1 since April.

Some of the fitness empire’s branches in Sydney, Queensland and Victoria have recently closed.

Struggling homeowners have even turned to Facebook to sell some of their gym equipment.

Opulent Group, one of F45’s biggest franchisees, has closed at least five gyms in Sydney, four in the southern suburbs of Kogarah, Kirrawee, Caringbah, Miranda, and one in Balgowlah on the Northern Beaches.

Meanwhile, at least eight class actions have been filed in the US against F45 related to the NYSE float, alleging “possible violations of securities laws and/or breaches of fiduciary duties”.