Following the creditors’ voluntary liquidation of United Fitness Brands (UFB) the assets have been acquired by a new company, Common Bond, headed up by UFB director, Hilary Rowland.

Rowland has confirmed to HCM that when UFB stopped trading, Common Bond obtained a licence to trade, took over the sites, continued to keep them operational and managed to retain all five brands, as well as the instructors.

Spanning indoor cycling, barre, reformer Pilates, yoga and boxing, the five brands are: Boom Cycle, Barrecore, Reformcore, Triyoga and Kobox, although Kobox doesn’t have a home at the moment.

“As a name and an ethos it's about bringing everything back to connection and community. It's that feeling of belonging that fitness studios cultivate. That beautiful joy of why we do what we do in this industry and one of the reasons why it's continuing to grow,” says Rowland.

“We are working with landlords to retain all of the 10 current sites and everything is operational. When everything happened Common Bond was able to get a license to trade and the responsibility of the company, including all of the costs going forward from that date in time were covered by Common Bond.”

The amount of debt divested has not been disclosed and the administrators and liquidators are still working through the process.

Rowland was the sole director at the end of UFB and currently she is joined by one other director on the board of Common Bond, Erica Gbenedio, from Nectar Capital, a long-term investor from the beginning of Boom Cycle. This will evolve as the company is built out. Rob Rowland has also been revealed as a director.

Exhilarated to have a fresh start, Rowland says the focus and resources of Common Bond will be directed at the studios “where the magic happens. Not the head office. Customer experience will be our number one priority and I’m excited to be back working with instructors and product teams because I feel like it really is my vein of gold, where I've always enjoyed my time the most and want to add the most value.

“We're going to launch some new formats within our current offerings and have already got three for release before January 2026.”

Other changes include a more inclusive and simpler pricing structure, a new member benefits programme, a new food and beverage offering, as well as a retreat in Crete this September.

Plans for franchising are in the pipeline, but the first priority is bedding in the business.

UFB launched in 2021, in the middle of the pandemic and Rowland is looking forward to a kinder trading environment for Common Bond. “It was so expensive to keep opening and closing the doors. It was like the business Olympics!” she says. “Anybody who took part in that got some serious training that money can't buy!

“It’s great not having all of that hanging over us and there's no customer fear about getting close to people in the studios and going forward we won’t be paying rents at pre-COVID prices. We also have data that the industry has grown and London is back. Not back to where it was, but better.”