Given the difficulty of obtaining credit by franchise candidates, Sano Center has proposed to continue growing this 2023 through the opening of corners in medical-health centers, in addition to deploying its new verticals in Sano Hotel and fitness hotels. outdoor Aire by Sano.
(20-2-2023). He assures that it would be necessary to go back to 2014 to see “such harsh” conditions to access financing, and explore new ways to “facilitate the path for franchisees”. The chain proposes fifteen openings this year with a focus on the medical-health and outdoor segment, after billing 6.2 million euros in 2022.
Sano Center is looking for a financial partner with which to fulfill the expansion plans of the chain for this 2023 in which it has planned fifteen openings. The main stumbling block to achieve this, a possible closure of the credit tap led by the bank and which, for the CEO of the school, Felipe Pascual, makes undertaking “increasingly complicated” and even “a chimera for recent graduates ”.
“All the processes for obtaining credit have slowed down. Everything that was easy in 2021 has now become an obstacle course”. With these words, Pascual laments the difficulties that Sano Center franchisee candidates are encountering in obtaining the necessary credit to start a business, in a scenario that for the businessman would go back to 2008-2014, the last major economic crisis that hit the Spain.
He considers that the current situation “has frozen all financing channels”, leading to “many of the usual partners of our franchise advising to wait”. To alleviate the situation and respond to the demand that exists to open new brand studios, Sano Center has begun negotiations with the main banking entities that operate nationwide, as well as designed co-financing formulas and negotiated new commercial conditions with suppliers. “Despite everything, the risk assessment of an entrepreneur is very high today and what could become a practical master’s degree for a recent graduate, such as managing their own Sano Center, is now science fiction,” laments Pascual.
Capital to accelerate expansion
It is for this reason that the company seeks to ally with a partner that contributes capital and facilitates the expansion of the franchise, which has planned for 2023 to improve its growth data from last year. After closing the 2022 financial year with a turnover of 6.2 million, above the 6 million registered in 2021, and completing 12 openings, the banner has proposed this year to add at least 15 new clubs.
The first of them is scheduled to open its doors this February, in which it will become the first Sano Center studio in the Balearic Islands. It will be located in Mahón, Menorca, which will be followed by at least two more clubs in Palma de Mallorca, as planned by the banner.
On the Peninsula, Sano Center has also planned to add troops during this first half of the year in El Ejido, Córdoba, Jaén, Málaga and Madrid.
Grow in the medical-health segment
Given the credit difficulties, one of the growth paths that Sano Center has set for this year has to do with establishing synergies with the medical-healthcare segment. The chain has begun to enter into conversations with physiotherapy and nutrition businesses with the aim of creating synergies and a reciprocal referral of clients.
In a first phase, the idea of the brand is to establish Sano Center corners, which would start with a lower investment, in physiotherapy, nutrition and other health-medicine specialties clinics, the company’s main objective being that “the medical segment -sanitary becomes our main engine of growth”.
new verticals
At the same time, the banner has planned to continue developing in 2023 the two new verticals deployed during the past year.
On the one hand, Sano Hotels, a division that debuted last June with the Melià hotel chain in Valencia. Currently, the brand manages two Sano centers within hotels, adding to Melià Valencia a second location at the Ramada by Wyndham Madrid Getafe hotel.
In May, a new unit is scheduled to open at the Bahía hotel in Palma de Mallorca, in addition to studying more projects in Valencia and the Balearic Islands.
For its part, Aire by Sano, Sano Center’s outdoor fitness proposal, will continue its growth in the market this spring. The project has been developed together with the Sano Center Mairena team, where the first container was located in 2021, and which will be in charge of expanding this business model on national soil.
The second Air will be located in the Seville municipality of Palomares del Río and is scheduled to open before Easter. “Initially, we will install the structures outside the already operational Sano Centers that their location allows,” says Felipe Pascual, who points to this type of business as another option for entrepreneurship. “The investment required for an Aire is a third (about 30,000 euros, equipment included) of that necessary to open a Sano Center, and makes it possible to specialize in specific niches of clients who are not usually gym users,” he comments in this regard.
15,000 customers
Sano Center closed last 2022 with 55 gyms in operation, to which 56 will be added this February in Mahón. Currently, Andalusia is its main area of action, where it has 30 centers, followed by the Community of Madrid, with 10. The rest of the clubs are spread over Catalonia (4), Murcia (3), the Valencian Community, Castilla La Mancha and Galicia. , with two respectively, and one in Castilla y León and Extremadura. The chain brings together nearly 15,000 customers across all its centers.
