Good morning, and welcome to the SOTS Third Quarter Presentation. My name is Sondri Grauer, the CEO of SUTS. And together with me here today, I have Cecily Elda, our CFO. We have given the presentation the name Welcome Back, as this was our message to all our fantastic members when we were able to operate all clubs again back in June. But it is also indicating a well comeback, which we believe is a good headline describing our Q3.
We will not have a live Q and A directly following the presentation today, so please follow-up with any questions you might have with our IR contact Stineklon, either on mobile or email. You can find the contact details on the first page of this presentation. We will also have a Q and A session with the analysts following such later today. I will give you an operational update as usual, and Cecilia will cover the financials. And as I indicated in the opening, we are back.
We have seen a rapid comeback of members and visits after opening our clubs. We have proven that it is safe to work out at SUTS with no confirmed infection cases among members tracked back to our clubs. We have tight and strong operational routines and cost control, resulting in significant improvement in member satisfaction We see that our top line is back on track and the member base is growing. We ended the quarter with 662 1,000 members and our revenues increased by 2% from Q3 2019 to NOK995 1,000,000. Adjusted EBITDA before IFRS 16 impact was NOK99 1,000,000, representing a 10.4 percent EBITDA margin, a slight decrease from Q3 2019.
We are very happy to see that our members have returned to our clubs, so they are getting healthier and happier. And as you can see, we have weekly and country specific variations in visits, but overall visits quickly came back to normal levels after reopening of our clubs and have remained strong. We see a positive momentum in all countries, but given the new governmental restrictions, especially in Sweden and Denmark introduced last week, we have by intention reduced visits in our clubs in these two countries the last week, as you can also see in the visit development on the slides. The strong visit level is a result of several key drivers, and we have received many questions around this topic from investors over the last months. The headline is that we have been able to re engage the full member base.
But if you go one level down in our numbers, we have several interesting findings. We see that we are increasing the engagement in our member base. Total visits per member is increasing, also because we see a strong growth in our digital usage. We don't see, as some might expect, that only some segments of our members have returned. The share of active members as percentage of total base is only 3 percentage points lower than pre COVID-nineteen levels.
Some of our older members have chosen to postpone their comeback to SARS. But overall, the average age of visiting members is only down 2.6 years compared to last year, and the gender distribution remains fairly stable. So overall demographics are back to normal. And this is resulting in a solid financial delivery. We have in Q3 nearly regained the full member base, now being only 1% behind the outgoing member base in Q3 2019.
This is a result of a record high net growth of 26,000 members in Q3 this year compared to 1,000 members in net growth in Q3 2019. The quick and strong member base recovery after a long period with closed clubs and the low increase in churn overall in Q2 and Q3 gives us a strong confidence also going forward, even with the uncertainty around potential new governmental restrictions being implemented. And as you see, we have also seen a strong recovery in our other revenues from personal training and retail, growing significantly compared to Q3 2019, resulting in an overall reported revenue growth of 2%. We have also had very tight cost control during the quarter. We made several cost cuts to compensate for the additional costs related to infection control measures.
And overall operating cost is somewhat up in the quarter, but this is driven by currency effects and temporary increased marketing spend. The underlying operational cost, currency adjusted, is actually below Q3 last year. It is important for us to emphasize that this comeback is a result of many initiatives, which we will describe in this section, how did we get there. As you remember, we closed all our clubs March 12. And then by June 15th, we had all clubs open and in operation.
From day 1, we have had the dual focus, handling the consequences from the lockdown in a forceful and professional way, but also to continue investments to ensure a strong comeback and lay the foundation for a long term growth strategy. An important part of this planning was to adjust our operating model to the new normal, operating with strong infection control measures. Our number one priority when reopening the clubs and also now is to ensure that we have a safe club environment both for members and for employees. And we take this very seriously and have implemented new operational routines in all clubs across the Nordics. The 2 single most important infection control measures are ensuring good hygiene and social distancing.
We have significantly improved our hygiene and cleaning routines, and we aim to carry forward with most of these new routines also after the risk of COVID-nineteen condition is reduced. This is important for the member experience and the feedback on cleaning from our members is now strongly improved. On the social distancing side, we have implemented a wide range of measures. We have reduced the capacity on our group training classes significantly and are partly compensating this with increasing the number of classes. We are also using member communication in our app and in the clubs to help our members to choose less busy clubs and less busy time slots.
And we are restricting the total number of members in our clubs to ensure social distancing. We have a close dialogue with the health authorities and we follow local governmental guiding and restrictions and are adapting the operational routines accordingly. Currently, we are operating with different restrictions in all countries, and also with some selected regional differences within the country. All clubs are open, but with strict limitations, especially on GX capacity. Currently, Denmark and Sweden have the highest infection levels, and this is reflected in the strongest governmental restrictions relevant for fitness club and the industry.
And we have, for example, taken forceful measures to reduce peak visit levels in Sweden based on governmental recommendations during the last week. Given the recent development in infection levels in the Nordics, we expect new restrictions to come, but have proven the ability to handle these in a responsible way. We have done significant changes to our operating model and routines, and also further standardize these routines across all our clubs. This has been important to ensure high quality in the implementation of COVID-nineteen measures, but also to reduce the underlying operational costs to compensate for the increased costs related to these extraordinary measures. And as I mentioned in the beginning, and Cecilia will comment further on this in the financial section, we have, as a result of this, been able to reduce the underlying operational cost, and we'll continue this work going forward.
But as I said, the number one priority has been to ensure that it is safe to work out in the SOTS club. And the facts speak for itself. It is safe to visit us, and it is safe to work out in the slots club, and it is safe for our employees to work there. There have been several scientific studies, both internationally and in Norway, supporting this. In June, the train study conducted by a research team from university in Oslo concluded that people who went to a gym were not more likely to get infected or sick than people who didn't.
Furthermore, a comprehensive study revealed from Europe Active last week looking into 62,000,000 fitness club visits in Europe after reopening concluded with very low infection rates and no local COVID-nineteen outbreaks tracked back to a fitness club. And we also saw last week that the Norwegian Directorate for Health and Social Affair stated publicly that there is enough space at a fitness club to enable social distancing and that there have been very few outbreaks in the industry compared to other areas in the society. And looking into the facts for such Norway after reopening, the conclusion is also clear. It is safe to keep fitness clubs open to ensure the overall activity level in the population and prioritize public health. In Norway, the government have tracked infection cases systematically all the ways since we re opened our clubs.
And since the reopening June 15th, we have had 4,200,000 visits in our clubs in Norway. The local authority for infection tracking, also called Smitveanchkontur, has identified 145 cases of infected members visiting our clubs, meaning that a member has been in a SOTS club, have done their workouts, and then later on had a positive COVID-nineteen test. Infection tracking has shown that none of these members have been infected in the Sots Club, and they have not during their visit infected other members as far as we have confirmed. We had no confirmed COVID-nineteen contention among our members in the Saks Club during these 4,200,000 visits. Our cleaning and social distancing measures have been successful.
It is also very important for us to handle all these cases in a good way. 2 of the core values in SUTS is being professional and accountable. And we are using these values as our guiding compass. Hence, we implement stronger actions than often recommended based on the dialogue we have with the local infection offices. If we have had a member visiting a subs club and later on delivering a positive COVID-nineteen test, we always inform all members that visited the same SOTS club at the same time.
Since we have check-in and registration of all members visiting our clubs, this tracking and communication can be done very quickly, and we have done so in all the cases we have had in Norway. And given our hygiene and social distancing routines, members have not been quarantined as a result of being in the club at the same time, but we are doing this to be transparent with our members. So as you hopefully understand, this is very important for us and we are taking this very seriously. We believe that it is hugely important for the society that people can stay active and work out, and it is our responsibility as the biggest operator in the Nordics to operate our clubs so this can happen. And hence, we really appreciate the transparent and constructive dialogue we have with the professional, but also very busy local infections offices.
And we get good guiding from them in all the cases we have had. I also want to say that we are so impressed with our members. They are overall acting very responsible, cleaning their equipment, ensuring social distancing and giving us positive feedback on our strict measures. And I'm truly proud of our 10,000 employees living our values and these new routines every day. You are all doing a very important job for our members.
It has also been important for us to prove that we can operate our clubs in a safe way, and then at the same time, deliver strong commercial results. As we reported during the Q2 presentation, we did not see a high increase in drop off during the quarter, but new sales were lacking when we had closed clubs. So during Q3, we have been very active in our marketing strategy, both to inform our members that it is safe to work out in our clubs, to make sure existing members restart their positive training habits, but also to recruit new members. And as you have seen from the numbers, it has worked. Our members are visiting our clubs, and many new members have joined.
Then we said earlier in the presentation that it was important for us to continue with our product development and investments even during the lockdown period. And we did this both for our digital products, but also within retail. In August, we launched our own comprehensive sports nutrition range, including sport drinks, protein shakes, bars, protein powders, and oatmeal. And personally, I find myself my own favorite. Many of the products have entered into the top sales list in their category.
Especially the vegan products have been very well received by our members. Further one, we are preparing to launch our own clothing collection. This will be basic training clothes with high quality materials at an affordable price point. We will launch a full range for both women and men and the wide ranges of sizes to fit everyone. We have had a strong focus on both ensuring a responsible production environment and materials for these clothes.
And we can't wait to make this launch happen because we are so curious to get the feedback from all our members. And actually, both Cecilia and myself are wearing these clothes under our uniform jacket today, and I can promise you they are very, very comfortable. We have also launched a new member app. This is a native app for iOS and Android with many new features. We see that the social connection between our members in the app is getting more and more important.
And as you can see, the adoption of the app in the member base and the growth in usage is very positive. And we have a lot of exciting plans ahead to further engage our members in the app and digitally. And in the new app, our online training product offering is seamlessly integrated, making these products more accessible and user friendly. We showed the development of online training usage in the Q2 presentation, and we have seen that the usage of our digital products has increased significantly compared to the levels we saw pre COVID-nineteen. It is also interesting to see how this growth is coming in addition to the high level of physical club visits, so the total engagement in our member base is increasing.
We are now offering a wide range of digital classes and training products, and we'll continue to develop and grow this offering going forward. Some of you might notice on the slide here, the spike in usage in week 40. And this is due to the launch of a new multichannel class called workout of the week. We see that many people use digital platforms to get inspiration for workouts and sometimes you want to do the same workout routine both at home and in the SOTS club or outdoor. And this is the reason for the product launch.
SOTS receives great response on the training progress and workout inspiration we post in social media. And members can choose whether they prefer to do the workout, as I said, home, outdoor, or in the club, and we are launching a new program in this class every week. The last piece of how we got back on track, I would like to mention, is the flexibility that lies in our strong club network. Our cluster strategy has always been important, and we want to give our members an extensive network of clubs to choose from. And our members, they really appreciate this.
And the majority actually visit several clubs in the SOTS network during a month. And this is the reason why we are able to accommodate for the high visit levels we see now, even with the strong COVID-nineteen measures in place and with reduced capacity to ensure social distancing. We see actually quite significant changes in the member behavior and visit patterns, driven by more flexibility and the fact that many people are now working from their home offices. Hence, we see that visits are being distributed more throughout the day, and not only in peak hours and also that members are visiting different clubs, for example, during daytime close to their home and not only in the city centre close to their office after work. We are also actively supporting this by guiding our members in the app, showing the real time visit levels at our clubs in the app so members can choose clubs and time periods with lower visit levels.
And this will also be important for us going forward to avoid too many people visiting at the same time, given the COVID-nineteen situation. Then looking ahead, what is important going forward in addition to daily operation and infection control? COVID-nineteen has accelerated some of the major megatrends we see in the society, And the focus on living a healthy lifestyle and changes in consumer preferences driven by technology are 2 key trends for our industry, enabling interesting growth opportunities for SaaS. And we really see that digitalization of the fitness industry is gaining momentum. The major global tech players are all focusing on health and lifestyle at the moment.
Google with their Google Health initiatives and the investment in Fitbit, Apple with their newly launched Apple Fitness platform and Amazon with the launch of Amazon Halo. Apple's CEO recently said that he believes that Apple's greatest contribution to mankind will be about health. This is a quite bold and inspiring statement, I believe. Every crisis contains the seeds of opportunities. And with the COVID-nineteen pandemic, consumers are even more focused on living a healthy lifestyle supported by technology.
Investing in our data platform and our digital offering have been a core part of the SaaS strategy during the last years. And during the lockdown this spring, we expanded our digital offering to a digital training universe. And we now offer digital classes, digital training programs, online personal training and physio services, digital corporate training, webinars, online shop and so on. And we will step up our investment to expand the product offering in this area going forward. A year ago, we started to build up a strong technology team within our organization, and we now have around 15 developers, data scientists, and UX resources on board.
And we will continue to grow this team so we can make even more inspiring digital fitness products going forward. As showed earlier in the presentation, the usage of digital is increasing significantly, handsets. And this comes on top, as we said, on the physical visits in our clubs. So we are very excited to continue this journey. We are currently the leading operator in the fitness industry in the Nordics, and we will be the leading fitness provider also going forward within digital fitness in the Nordics.
The other important megatrend is around public health and having a healthy lifestyle. In the Nordic society today, inactivity is a big challenge and a problem for the public health. The Nordic population is more active than the average in Europe, but still just about 50% of the population in the Nordic countries reached a minimum recommendation on physical activity levels from the World Health Organization. And then came corona and further reduced the activity level in the population. Public health took a big hit in the lockdown during the spring, and this is proven by several studies.
A US study showed a rapid decrease in the step count worldwide, the 1st month of lockdown, in some regions down nearly 50%. And here in Norway, more than half of young people between 1825 stopped exercising during the lockdown. These are dramatic numbers, and we have to avoid coming into this same situation as a society again. The positive effects of physical activity on the public health are significant and more important than ever. Physical activity is important for the brain, improving both stress management, learning, memory, creativity, concentration, and also intelligence.
Further on, regular physical activity is proven to lead to a better quality of life due to increased mental well-being and better general physical health. On top of that, several studies show that exercise could become a key pillar for the health recovery and COVID-nineteen prevention. And this is what SUTS is all about. Our vision is to make people healthier and happier. And this is what motivates our 10,000 employees every day coming to their work.
We work every day to reduce physical inactivity, both through our product offer, in clubs and digitally. And we are helping our members to become active. We really want our members to visit us as much as possible. And we focus a lot on activation in our member communication. In the onboarding of new members, our most important goal is to make them active.
And we are following up on our inactive members extensively with motivating member communication to get them going. And lately, we have done a lot of experiments in our digital member communication with very positive results. We really make a difference. And the result of this is a significant positive impact on the public health. During a year, we have around 38,000,000 visits in our Sats Clubs.
And on top of this, we have our digital training sessions. And together with Oslo Economics, we have estimated some of the positive effects of Sats being an important platform for public health using the same metrics as the government in Norway on how physical activity is resulting in prolonged life expectancy and the financial contribution to society. And based on this, we estimate that the public health effect from training with SUTS is being valued to at least NOK 11,000,000,000 and resulting in 8,000 more years of good health for our members. Good health and well-being is the 3rd of UN's sustainability goals and Sats is a major contributor in the Nordic society and we will be even more important going forward. And with this positive message around public health and our contribution, I'll leave the word over to Cecile to talk about financials.
Thank you, Sandra, and good morning, everyone. All the clubs in the portfolio has been fully open throughout this quarter. And as stated in our last quarterly reporting, focus over the last months have been to systematically recover member base, securing the financial run rate into 2021 to be able to regain the profitability levels that we had before the COVID-nineteen pandemic hit our business. So starting off with the member development. We have been more active than normal on the campaign side, which has proven to be very successful.
We have a record high net growth in the 3rd quarter. So with net growth of 26,000 members, the member base is up 4% versus the last quarter and we are now tracking only 1% behind last year's figures after adjusting for the members lost when divesting the 9 clubs in Denmark. And our member base has proven to be quite resilient. The overall number of drop offs year to date remains stable at the same level than last year. And number of members of freeze is of course as expected somewhat higher than normal as many members choose to freeze their memberships rather than resigning.
So we have so far not seen any severe COVID-nineteen impact on drop offs and the decline in the member base is fully an effect of the lack in sales during the first half year when we were closed. But even though the member development in the Q3 has been exceptionally strong, We do not expect this trend to continue into Q4. We live in uncertain times. Sats is highly exposed to governmental restrictions, recommendations from authorities and member behavior. So we have been able to catch up a significant share of the lack in sales, but we expect Q4 sales to be slower than normal and also expect to see an increase in churn given the continued uncertainty in the society.
Still, the development in the Q3 is promising and shows that we have the ability to quickly regain ground after short term setbacks. Average membership revenues per member continues to improve in the 3rd quarter as previous yield initiatives compensate for the short term effects of Q3 campaigns and higher than average number of members on freeze in the quarter. The tactical sales campaigns in the Q3 does not affect the contractual price, but as the discounts from the free months are deferred over the full 12 plus 2 month binding period, the yield takes a short term hit and will continue to do so in the following quarters. In the Q3, the reported negative yield is around SEK11.5 million and it will be around SEK15 1,000,000 in the next quarters to come. So the underlying membership yield in the quarter is up 2% when adjusting for currency and the temporary discount effect.
And as can be seen on the right hand side graph, the average contractual membership price in the base is not significantly affected by the club closure and continues to show a strong positive underlying development following the ongoing yield initiatives that we had last year and increases by 3.3% year on year. Other revenues are also returning to pre COVID-nineteen level, both in terms of average revenue per member and actual revenues. Currently, we are tracking ahead of last year, up 13% after adjusting for currency. And the margin for these additional revenues remains intact at 35% to 40%, in line with pre COVID-nineteen levels. For personal training revenue specifically, we have somewhat fewer PTs than we had last year, meaning that the activity level per PT is increased, showing the continued potential in the PT area.
Retail also continued to grow and the launch of our own nutritional range further fuels this growth at improved margins. The positive development both in member growth in the quarter and average revenue per member can also be seen in total revenues, ending at €955,000,000 up 2% from last year. This is partly driven by positive currency effects due to the weakening of NOK against other currencies. However, currency adjusted revenues are down 3%, but this is mainly due to revenue lost from the 9 divested clubs in Denmark And with more members temporarily on freeze, member revenues are further reduced compared to last year, leaving the underlying revenue on par with last year. Other revenues, however, despite fewer members, show a currency adjusted increase of 7% compared to last year, both driven by personal training and retail revenue.
Pre COVID-nineteen, we saw an increase in visits per member and the trend has continued even after reopening our clubs, which has contributed to increase that we now see in other revenues. Adjusted EBITDA of CHF99 1,000,000 in the quarter is down 23% from last year, mainly as a result of temporarily increasing marketing spend as well as somewhat lower revenues from the higher level of members on freeze, which also should be viewed as temporary. The EBITDA margin is consequently down to 10.4% in the quarter. And operating under the new normal does result in some additional cost related measures, especially within cleaning and sanitation products. But we have compensated for this cost increase by cost reductions in other areas.
So the total cost level is higher than Q3 due to higher marketing spend. But other than that, adjusting for currency, club OpEx is on par with last year. And just to summarize this first section, campaigns will affect reported average revenue per member in the short term. But as we've seen, the average contractual membership price is increasing. The member base is slowly climbing back towards pre COVID levels and we have shown the ability to quickly regain ground after short term setbacks.
And the new normal does drive additional cost driving measures, but overall cost levels are under control and is expected to remain on par with last year. And once the member base is back and stabilized at pre COVID-nineteen levels, we expect to return to the healthy financials that we had prior to the pandemic. As we communicated last quarter, we have continued to invest in our club portfolio throughout this period and as maintaining great clubs is important for us to ensure the sustainability of future earnings. Full year expectations for maintenance CapEx remain in line with our previous communication keeping it stable at around 5% of revenues. Further on, we will be open for acquisitions opportunities when they arise and all signed greenfields and planned acquisitions will go on as planned.
And when it comes to net growth of clubs for this year, we have already opened 6 new clubs in the 1st 9 months of 2020 and we have an additional 2 new greenfields opening in Stockholm in Q4. In September, we opened 1 new club in Helsinki, Isoomana and 1 new club in Lingby, Copenhagen. We also relocated 2 clubs in Norway, 1 in Oslo at Hof and one in Stavanger at the Harbaryum shopping mall. And in addition, we have announced earlier this week that we have acquired 6 clubs in the Greater Oslo area, which will be branded as Fresh Fitness. And we have also signed an acquisition of a small club in Finland in Turkey opening already next week.
So after divesting the 9 clubs in Denmark, we have a net growth of 6 clubs in 2020. And some more details on the 6 newly acquired clubs branded as Fresh Fitness. Borre Trianning is a portfolio of 6 clubs and the acquisition is in line with our strategy of focusing on the capital clusters. And the 6 clubs are relatively small compared to the average SUTS club and fits perfectly into the Fresh Fitness footprint. And these are well run, unmanned, efficient clubs, which have a total of 9,000 members and had reported revenues of €30,000,000 and an EBITDA of €11,000,000 in 20.19.
The fitness industry has experienced a significant setback caused by the COVID-nineteen outbreak, and we expect the negative effects to continue in the time to come. But we are confident that the long term outlook is still dominated by the society's increased focus on health and well-being. Over the longer term, we expect the economic impact of the pandemic to drive further consolidation in the fitness industry and we believe that the market dynamics post COVID-nineteen will be suited our business model. Our latest acquisitions in Oslo and Stockholm has proven to be very successful and are typically closed at multiples around 5 to 6 times EBITDA, which is value accretive even before adding in synergies driven by our scale. So we plan for further expansion in the Nordic through a combination of greenfields and acquisition and aim to fill in the existing clusters that were present in as well as assessing potential new clusters in smaller cities in our markets to remain the leading provider of fitness and training services in the Nordics.
Operating cash flow for the 3rd quarter is positive at SEK77 1,000,000 as the structural negative working capital in Q3 is outweighed by reduction in payroll taxes and public duties in Norway, as well as receiving the governmental compensation for fixed costs during closure period in Q1 and Q2. And in terms of liquidity, we remain in strong health with a cash balance of SEK609 1,000,000 after Q3. And this provides a cash buffer in the event of local or national lockdowns or additional restrictions being reimposed, while at the same time facilitating return to growth strategy focus and developing and opening new clubs when the right opportunities arise. And now finally looking at the Group's net debt and leverage position. As a result of the COVID closure, net debt temporarily increased to SEK1.3 billion last quarter and has remained stable throughout this Q3.
Weakening of LTM EBITDA due to the effects of the lockdown in Q2 result in temporary elevated leverage ratio of 4.1 in the Q3. And as we communicated last quarter, an amendment to the revolving credit facility was signed in July, waiving the original financial leverage based covenants. An amendment period will last for 1 year until June 2021. But we have the flexibility to step back to your original agreement at any time and we will do so if we see that the leverage ratio recovers to the pre COVID-nineteen levels prior to June 2021. And the new financial covenants applicable in the amendment period are minimum levels for 12 months EBITDA and maximum levels for CapEx per quarter.
But we do have the flexibility to continue growing inorganically as we have shown with the mentioned acquisition of Bare Training, but we do not expect to distribute any dividends to shareholders during this amendment period. And with that, I leave the word back to Sondre for outlook.
Thank you, Cecilia. So let's sum it up and look ahead. We are very happy with our 3rd quarter delivery, both in terms of member engagement and financials. But we don't expect the record high net growth in the member base in Q3 to continue in Q4 given the COVID-nineteen development and the uncertainty around new governmental restrictions that might come. But we have proven that we are able to quickly recover even after a long period of closed clubs.
Our number one priority is to ensure that it's safe to train in our clubs so we can continue with our positive contribution to public health, which is now more important than ever. We have proven that we are able to combine both strong infection control measures and at the same time deliver positive and inspiring member experiences, growth and product development. And we are ready to operate in this new normal for as long as necessary. And we see that digital fitness is growing, and this is creating interesting new opportunities for SaaS, and we are already well on the way capturing this. We will also continue to invest in growth, both in existing and new clusters going forward, as the club expansion overview also illustrated.
That concludes the presentation for today. Stay safe, stay active, and thank you for listening.