TEMPERS FLARED at the creditors’ meeting of failed gym chain Total Fitness yesterday, as members questioned the motives of company directors.
The statement of affairs of Centre Operators Ltd, the company behind Total Fitness, shows that its 11,150 gym members are owed €1.6 million. However, by far the largest unsecured creditor is UK company Total Fitness 2010 Ltd, which is due almost €4.5 million. When questioned about this debt, chairman Graham Hallworth said this company was a shareholder of Centre Operators, while director Andrew Fortune said Total Fitness 2010 had acquired the debt of the company last October for £1.
A solicitor representing Centre Operators’ landlord, Mardown Ltd, questioned the validity of this €4.5 million debt. She also disputed Mr Hallworth’s claim that Mardown did not respond to requests to enter into negotiations on rent. Centre Operators had blamed high rents for the closure of the gyms this month.
The statement of affairs also shows that an intercompany debt of €7.1 million, which was owed to Centre Operators by Total Fitness Holdings (Ireland) has been written off completely. Mr Hallworth said this was an historic issue, but was unable to explain the bad debt to the satisfaction of creditors.
He also claimed that there had been an “incident” recently at the Malahide Road gym involving a group of members who had become aggressive towards staff members. “Threats on their lives were made,” he said. Several members of that gym took issue with this allegation. One man inquired as to whether the incident had been reported to the gardaí, to which Mr Hallworth replied that it had not. “Well then it didn’t happen,” the member said.
The atmosphere grew increasingly heated in the overcrowded room in a Dublin city hotel where the meeting took place, with shouts of “thieves, thieves” directed at Mr Hallworth and Mr Fortune. One particularly distressed woman had recently signed up for membership for herself, her husband and their five children in the Malahide Road gym. “Why did you take cash of €1,200 off me in February?”
The creditors in attendance yesterday attempted to nominate their own liquidator, but the company representatives said that because voting is done by value of debt, Total Fitness 2010 had a sufficient vote to elect its own nominee. Mr Hallworth also said that an unnamed third party had expressed interest in the business.
