UAE’s Arada strengthens gym holding

• Real estate firm operates 15 gyms
• Targets 100,000 members by 2027
• Fitness sector growing 30% in Mena

Arada has finalised the purchase of three UAE-based gym brands, bringing its total number of premises operated across the Gulf state to 15.

The real estate developer said that the women-only FitnGlam, boutique exercise hub The Platform Studios and recently launched health club Fitcode make its fitness and wellness division, Wellfit, worth more than AED1 billion ($272 million).

By the end of 2027 Arada hopes to operate 40 gyms with a combined membership of 100,000.

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As part of the acquisition process, fitness industry veteran George Flooks has been appointed as CEO of Wellfit. 

The fitness market in the Middle East and North Africa has been growing at an annual rate of 30 percent since 2020, with the UAE sector valued at an estimated $550 million and Saudi Arabia at $1.7 billion.

Investors see ample opportunity in the Gulf to increase gym membership uptake: while 16 percent of the population in the UK has a gym membership and 21 percent in the US, in the UAE and Saudi Arabia those figures are 7 and 8 percent, respectively.

Salameh Swiss, CEO of the private equity company Levant Capital, who completed a majority investment in the UAE-based Warehouse Gym in September, previously told AGBI: “Penetration rates can rise to double these figures, depending on localised demographics.”