The Gym Group Bounce Back

Tuesday, 19th March 2019 11:21 - by Rajan Dhall

The Gym Group's share price has fallen from highs in Sept'18 of 344p to lows seen at the beginning of this month at around 186p that's a 45% drop!

Could this represent value in the market or are the company just rebounding and are they still in a bad situation. Here are some of the highlights from their most recent report. 

•    Revenue of £123.9 million, an increase of 35.6% (2017: £91.4 million)

•    Group Adjusted EBITDA of £36.8 million, an increase of 31.6% (2017:  £28.0 million)

•    Basic adjusted earnings per share increased to 8.4p (2017: 7.4p)

•    Adjusted profit before tax increased by 19.4% to £14.4 million (2017: £12.0 million)

•    Statutory profit before tax of £10.0 million (2017: £9.2 million)

•    Proposed final dividend of 0.95p per share, giving a proposed full year dividend of 1.30p per share (2017: 1.20p per share)

•    17 new gyms opened and 13 acquired from easyGym, increasing the total estate to 158 at December 2018

•    The new financial year has started well and current trading is in line with the Board's expectations with 793,000 members at the end of February, an increase of 9.5% since the year end; additionally, over the same period, the penetration of LIVE IT has grown to 13.5%

This set of results ends at the 31st Dec, so it does not include the January boost that the market normally sees. Having said that fitness seems to be getting more popular as social media trends are encouraging the younger generations to focus more on aesthetics. A key criticism of the company is its ability to keep up with maintaining equipment, if they can address this it seems like it may be a viable opportunity. Looking at the weekly chart, the reversal seems promising. The 224p resistance level could be a big test as there is a resistance trendline in the near vicinity. Either way, it would a good idea to keep an eye on the market trends and any further indication of the performance in January/February other than the comments in this report as it could be a key indicator to the performance of the stock.