Hello, and welcome to the Basic-Fit Q1 Trading Update. Please note that today's conference is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen-only mode. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. If you require assistance at any point, please call our support number provided in the invite email to you. I will now turn the call over to your host for today's conference, Richard Piekaar, Head of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.
Well, thank you, and good afternoon, and welcome to everyone to our conference call. With me today are CEO René Moos and CFO Maurice de Kleer. In this call, René and Maurice will give a short introduction, after which we will open the floor for questions. This call is being broadcast live on our website, and the recording of the call will be available shortly afterwards. As usual, I would like to point out that safe harbor applies. With that, I hand it over to you, René.
Thank you. Today, we will start by looking at the group highlights from the first quarter of 2026. As a reminder, the group consists of Basic-Fit and Clever Fit owned and franchise clubs. We ended the quarter with 2,184 clubs, a 35% increase over the same period last year. Membership increased to 6 million, up from 4.7 million in the first quarter of 2025. Revenue for the group increased by 19% year-over-year to EUR 396 million. All in all, a strong start of the year. Turning now to the Basic-Fit branded business, so excluding Clever Fit, we grew our club footprint by 28 clubs, with the majority of club openings in our growth markets of France, Spain and Germany. The number of memberships increased by 215,000 versus 213,000 last year.
The ingrowth is particularly impressive given that 13 fewer clubs were opened in this quarter versus the first quarter in 2025. In total, Basic-Fit increased its memberships by 13% to 5 million. We now have an average membership per club of 2,981, an 8% increase year-over-year. In the first quarter of 2026, Basic-Fit revenue increased by 15% to EUR 380 million, driven by very good member ingrowth in our clubs and a solid yield development in the average revenue per Basic-Fit member. We are currently the market leader in six out of the 12 countries where we are present. As we just saw on the previous slides, we opened 28 Basic-Fit owned clubs in this quarter and five Clever Fit franchise clubs. Let's look first at our own Basic-Fit club openings. In total, we opened 29 clubs and closed one for a net growth of 28 clubs.
We opened eight clubs in Spain, followed by Germany and France with seven clubs each. Five clubs were opened in Belgium and two clubs were opened in the Netherlands in the first quarter. During the first quarter, we opened five franchise clubs in the German market under the Clever Fit label, bringing the total of franchise clubs in our markets to 440 clubs. Franchising is a key part of how we see Basic-Fit's future. In the coming period, we will introduce Basic-Fit branded franchise clubs alongside the existing Clever Fit franchise. The first Clever Fit franchise is expected to be rebranded to Basic-Fit in the second quarter. The aim is to reach critical mass of 200 Basic-Fit clubs in Germany in 2027, which will allow us to start nationwide marketing campaigns. We continue to see strong interest in both the Basic-Fit and Clever Fit brands in the DACH region.
Next to franchise opportunities in Germany, we have also reviewed the opportunities that exist in the other growth markets. We are considering franchising in France, where we see ample growth opportunities for the Franchise business. We expect the contribution of franchise to revenue and underlying EBITDA less rent to be limited in the near term, as it will take time for franchise club growth to reach a meaningful scale. Let's now turn it over to Maurice.
Thanks, René. As communicated on April 15th, we received confirmation from the French public authorities that we can operate 24/7 clubs unstaffed in France. Under this revised amendment, we believe that approximately 200 of our French clubs will immediately qualify for 24/7 unstaffed operations. In May, we will transition 50 staffed clubs to the unstaffed model, and in the summer of 2026, we will be adding a further 150 unstaffed clubs. Based on the specifics of the regulation amendment, like the requirements to have a maximum of 19 people in the club when it's operating without staff, we expect to achieve annualized cost savings of approximately EUR 10 million, of which a smaller part will be realized this year.
We expect that over time, further revisions to the amendment will lead to additional cost savings. For 100 clubs already in the current 24/7 staff model that do not satisfy the current criteria, we elected to keep those clubs staffed. This morning, we communicated that we increased our expectations for underlying EBITDA less rents. The increase is partly based on the changes of French regulation announced on the April 15th for staffless clubs, as I mentioned in the previous slide.
In addition, the postponement of the Belgian VAT will result in a tailwind compared to the guidance given in January. It is still uncertain if and when the new VAT plans will be implemented, but each month's postponement results in around EUR 1 million additional underlying EBITDA less rent, and the postponement will be, that is to say, at least three months. Further postponement will provide, of course, further upside.
The foundation for the adjusted EBITDA guidance is a solid start of the year, which gives us confidence to increase our expectations for underlying EBITDA less rents by EUR 10 million. We now expect group underlying EBITDA less rent of between EUR 450 million and EUR 455 million. The guidance for revenue of between EUR 164 billion and EUR 169 billion, net club growth of around 50 clubs, leverage ratio of just over 2x , and a significant improvement of positive free cash flow remain unchanged. When we look at the longer term, the positive membership trends and the expected continued increase in yields will support the continued growth in revenue and underlying EBITDA less rent in the coming years.
On a site level, we will continue to focus on the return on invested capital of mature clubs of at least 30%. In addition, we will focus on group return on capital of low to mid-teens in the medium term. I will elaborate more on our focus on group returns at our Capital Markets Day next week. With this last remark, I open the floor for questions.
Thank you. Your lines are now opened. If you would like to ask a question at this time, please press the pound key followed by the number five on your telephone keypad. Please ensure that the mute function on your telephone is switched off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. We want to ask all participants to not ask more than three questions per person to give everyone a chance to ask a question. If you find that your question has already been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing pound key six on your telephone keypad. The first question comes from Robert Jan Vos from ABN AMRO. Robert Jan, go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good afternoon all. Thanks for taking my questions. Let's do three then. First on the group memberships, it was 6 million at the end of Q1. Can you provide maybe the exact split between owned club memberships, which is Basic-Fit and a few Clever Fit clubs, as I understand, and the franchise memberships? That's my first question. Shall I wait or shall I continue?
No, we can answer that.
Okay.
We have 5 million Basic-Fit members. We have around 1 million Clever Fit members, and of those 1 million, around 100,000 owned clubs. It's around that number. Owned is 5 million Basic-Fit and over 100,000 Clever Fit.
All right. That's very clear. Second question. You said in the press release that you added five new franchise clubs in the first quarter and that they were all Clever Fit clubs. I would assume that with clear benefits from operating one brand instead of two brands eventually, why were they all Clever Fit clubs? Was that because of pipeline, they were about to be opened as franchise clubs? Or why were they all Clever Fit clubs? That's my second question.
Yeah. As you said, it's because of the pipeline that they were in. As you may remember, it takes at least one, maybe two years to get the license. Once you started the whole program as a Clever Fit, then you also have to build it like a Clever Fit club. Maybe somebody can put it on mute? Yes. Because they were in the pipeline and you will see more openings of Clever Fit this year for the same reason.
Yes. That's clear. My third question is, you said that the near term revenue and EBITDA contribution from franchise is expected to remain limited. Is there a possibility that you can provide some guidance on that more specifically for 2026? Related to that, if I'm not mistaken, revenue contribution amounted to EUR 5 million in Q1, which was the revenue contribution of franchise. It was also EUR 5 million in Q4, whereas Q4 was only two months and Q1 is three months of contribution. Why is it not a bigger step up than the flat number of EUR 5 million in Q4 and EUR 5 million in Q1? Thank you.
Well, I think it also has to do with timing, and it also has to do with what the franchisee are paying when they're opening club. The kickback and so on. It's It's not as logical as a member base monthly subscription that it's every month the same. It varies. If you look at the full year 2026, we expect, if you look at the current situation, that the turnover will be at least similar to what we had in the last two months. It will be between EUR 60 million and EUR 70 million turnover for the Clever Fit organization. That is full year, and that is of course a combination of the franchise income, the kickbacks, and the owned clubs from Clever Fit.
Yeah. That's clear. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Natasha Brilliant from UBS. Natasha, go ahead.
Good afternoon and thank you very much for taking my questions. I'll ask them one- by- one as well, just for ease. The first one is just on the membership trends. Up 8% membership per club, up 8% year-over-year. Can you just give us a bit more color how that compares by region and how it compares by the different cohorts of clubs? Is that really driven by new clubs or is that existing clubs improving as well? Just any more color you can give us on that trend, please.
Yeah, I think when you look at the 8%, I think the countries that did best in the first quarter are our growing countries, our new countries, Spain and France. They did both very well in the first quarter. If you look at the new club compared to last year, that is of course lower because we opened less clubs. You will see the ingrowth at the mature clubs that we have. Overall, we're very happy to see that France and Spain are doing very well and also that our mature clubs continue to grow.
Perfect. Thank you. The second question is about the franchise opportunity in France. If you can just give us a bit more color on why France? Is it just that's the first one to start with, but we could see markets after that? Or have you discounted the other markets as well?
No, there will definitely be more countries than France. We think we can still add an additional 500 clubs because of the fitness penetration being low and the fact that we see that new club openings are doing very well. Being able to grow with more than 500 clubs in a country is interesting. We are currently investigating that and we think that will be a good country to start, but after that we will add other countries as well. The focus will be on Germany for sure, because we have already there, of course, a franchise organization and the second country will be probably France, and after that more countries will follow.
Okay, understood. My last question is just on the changes to the French regulation. I was very skeptical, so it's great that it's come through. You mentioned some anticipated changes as well. Can you just set out what they might be and how that would drive further cost savings?
Yeah. French is French, so that's always a bit different than the rest of Europe. If what you see in the rest of Europe is that all countries are exactly the same. You have the system in place. If the system is good and safe, then you're able to open it without staff. France starts with this number, this 19 people maximum. That makes it of course difficult. That means you have to implement a reservation system to be able to, that you don't have 18 people in the gym. Yeah, that's a limiting factor. That means that we can only do it between 1:00 A.M. and 6:00 A.M. because then we know for sure it will be below 20. That means you save only five hours.
If you would do it like all the other countries, you can start already at, say, 10:30 P.M. till say 6:30 A.M. That is a big difference. That the discussions that are ongoing with the French government, we think at least there were discussions about that this is the start, that they first want to test it a period and then if it's going well, then that they will continue to change that and to optimize it because of course, we clearly explained what the rest of Europe was doing. This is the start.
We do expect that in time that number 19 will become maybe 29, 39, and eventually, like the rest of Europe, if you have a good system, unlimited. That is why we think that we can grow this EUR 10 million to what we said before, around 50% of the extra investment so that we could grow that number to like EUR 17.5 million and that we could also do it on more clubs than the current 300 that we are talking about.
That was really clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Karel Zoete from Kepler Cheuvreux. Karel, go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon. I have two questions in relation to the German market. The first one is, what's the feedback from some of your franchise partners now? You're active now for a couple of months. What are you hearing back? What do they think about Basic-Fit? The other thing is the dynamics in the German market in general, with a strong player coming in. What are you seeing in terms of competitive behavior? Thank you.
Yeah. If we start with the last question, strong competitor. I think the German market is a very mature market with very sticky members. The fitness penetration is still very low. If you look at the 83 million inhabitants in Germany and the fitness penetration, it is very strange that it's not similar to what it is, let's say, in the Netherlands. There's huge room for improvement. We will discuss that a bit more on our Investor Day next week. We see huge improvement on the German market. How we look at the German market, we see it as a huge opportunity to grow our business there. What you see a lot at the moment is that some chains are acquiring other clubs. That is, of course, also a model, but that's not how you grow the market.
We also, of course, always look at potential add-ons, but we're mostly focused on opening and building our own clubs. With that, we will grow the German market. Even though there are players, there are not a lot of big players. I think the biggest chain has around 250 locations. If you take that on a member or 83 million inhabitants, that is very low. We have 250 clubs in the Netherlands, and we have around 250 clubs in Belgium, which, of course, have much less inhabitants. Huge wide space. We think we can grow a lot, and that's why we're happy that we will do both in Germany, owned clubs and franchise clubs. The reaction of the franchisees were mixed. Overall it was positive. They were happy that there was a change, and they were happy with the first steps we have taken.
We have improved some of the purchase things that they're doing. The equipment for them as of last week is cheaper. The marketing is more interesting and cheaper and so on. We, of course, have to build the trust. It's not that you buy something and that people fully 100% trust you and believe everything you say. We have to build trust, and we have to show them that we are good partners, and that's also our goal, to grow the company and to make the franchisees more successful. I think it's going very well. I had a call with the franchisees actually two weeks ago. Normally around 100 of the 160 called in, and now we had more than 200 different people calling in. That meeting went very well. They were very positive also in the Q&A.
I think we're starting to build more trust and some of the franchisees are interesting to open the first Basic-Fit clubs. They're actually looking to see who's the first one to open the club. Everybody's really motivated. A lot of them are also really focused on their current Clever Fit club that they own already for 10 or 15 or 20 years, and very comfortable with that label. That will also continue, and we will also support them in that way. Overall, I think the start, it's like a new marriage. It takes time to build trust. We're in now for 4.5 months. I think overall it has been going well.
Super. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Marc Zwartsenburg from ING. Mark, go ahead.
Good afternoon. Couple of questions. We're left with only a staffed solution in France. Why are you so sure that at some point the French government will say, "Okay, let's go to 29, 39," or at some point in line with the other countries, because this already took a while. Yeah, why are you so confident that that will happen?
Well, again, it is France, so there is a risk there. With the discussions that we had, and what was discussed, we know that they're open and they said that for improving that amount of members, but they wanted to have a slow start. It's just the trust came out of the discussions that we had, put it that way.
Is that at a checkpoint in the future that you say we sit together and we review how it went after six months or so and then take it from there? Or is there any milestones?
No
Agreed with them, or is it?
No.
Nothing. Okay.
Nothing.
Because at some point you could also go with your own staff and
Yeah
That would also save you money-
Yeah. We will do that if it's clear.
...take such a [decision], you need a bit of a milestone.
Yeah. No, but it's clear. If that is the case, if it feels like that, then we will do that. Because that saves, of course, also a lot of money. We can also grow to the EUR 17.5 million instead of. Again, we are confident that the 19 number will be pushed up, and if we lose that trust, we will convert.
Yeah. Okay. Very clear. On the outlook, at EUR 10 million extra on the outlook, EUR 4 million or EUR 5 million for France. If you just take it pro forma, what the number of yesterday, you take three months of extra postponement for Belgium, which is just over EUR 3 million. There's a limited slight underlying increase in your outlook, if I read that then correctly.
Correct.
Is that because you're still cautious? Yeah, the first quarter was definitely above expectations, if I hear you correctly on the membership and growth-
Correct.
...is that just a matter of caution because it's so early in the year that you keep it a bit for yourself, or how should I read that?
No, Marc.
Was April not looking so good?
No, no. Actually, April already started very good for us. No, we really had a strong first quarter, of course, you saw that. That is both on top line P&L, but also we see that reflected also in the cost. Both the overhead and the club costs are in line, actually. As you saw, so we can profit from the change in 24/7 regulations only partly this year. That's one part of it. Of course, we only calculated the first months of postponement of the Belgian VAT. If that's further postponed or changed in a good way for us, then that will give us extra tailwind. For now, we feel comfortable with the extra EUR 10 million that we communicated.
Okay, clear. A last one, if I may. I think, René, you mentioned by 2027, we expect to be at the level of clubs with the Basic-Fit brand in Germany that would warrant a nationwide campaign. That's at 200 clubs, I guess?
Mm-hmm.
Can you give us a bit of a roadmap how you get there? Because you're now at 74. You will open some yourself. You will have some converted ones, but then still there's quite a gap. How do you get there?
Yeah, we get there by more clubs opening. I think, as you said-
Yeah, you can only do 20 or 25 or so there's a bit of a gap there.
Yeah. No, that's correct. The franchise part should grow. What we see is that some of the people that started getting the licenses and are still able to transfer it to Basic-Fit are doing that. We'll see some of those. We also have a lot of new franchisees that will start with the Basic-Fit franchise, so that is also part of it. We will do some small add-ons. We have a couple of Clever Fit franchisees that want to sell the one, two, or three clubs to us, so we're in negotiations there. Outside the Clever Fit, people want to sell the club. We also have some small add-on acquisitions that we are talking to now. In that combination, we expect, during 2027, to reach that number.
All right. That's all my questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Marc.
As a reminder, if you want to ask a question, press pound key five on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Robert Jan Vos from ABN AMRO [Otto]. Robert Jan, go ahead.
Yes. Hi. Apologies for coming back, but I have two remaining questions. You say that you expect a number of Clever Fit franchise clubs to transition to owned clubs. I think, René, you mentioned a number in a previous question, but what number should we assume for 2026? Just to be clear, does this number come on top of the 50, or is it part of the 50 new owned club openings that you expect for this year? My second question is probably for Maurice. On the convertible bond, you mentioned EUR 159 million is locked up so there won't be early redemption. My question there is this it, or could it even increase further? Because the exercise of the puts is possible as from, if I'm not mistaken, May 18th. Could it increase further or is this it? Those were my two remaining questions. Thank you.
Well, thanks, Robert Jan. Let me start with the second question. You are correct. Currently, EUR 159 million of the bonds waive their put option. The remainder of the bondholders, we can expect to exercise their put option before the June 17th. Of course, that largely also depends on the share price. If the share price is about EUR 34 and higher, you can expect that they stay in. For now, we assume that they will exercise the put option, and we have, of course, our bank facilities in place to meet any demand from our bondholders.
The other question.
Yeah.
Acquisitions are on top of the 50. They will come on top of the 50 clubs. I think I don't have a concrete number of how many clubs this year or how many clubs next year. We are in discussions with many franchisees, with many people, and you never know where that ends. As soon as we know actually, once a deal is done and when it's substantial, we will come out and communicate it. We-
To be clear, if you do-
Go ahead.
Yeah, just to be clear, if you do 10 transitions, then the actual number of new net owned clubs could be 60 then?
Yeah. Well, if you-
From clubs you said.
Yeah, that's correct. Yeah.
Okay, that's clear.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yep. Richard.
All right. If there are no further questions, then it's time to close the call. Thank you all for dialing in and for your input. If there are any remaining questions at a later time, please don't hesitate to call Heather or me. Thank you very much. Have a nice day.
Thank you. Bye