PureGym paid 7.8 times earnings for a Swiss gym chain

1. What a Swiss gym chain is worth

On 15 October PureGym, the British low-cost gym group, agreed to buy NonStop Gym for £235 million, about CHF 250 million, in cash. NonStop was founded in 2014 and runs 47 gyms with 101,000 members. NonStop's gyms are in French- and Italian-speaking Switzerland, PureGym's 49 in the German-speaking part; together they make a national network. Completion is set for 2 November.

PureGym gave its bondholders the numbers. NonStop earned £25 million of adjusted EBITDA in the twelve months to June 2026, on revenue of £53 million, up from £41 million in 2024. PureGym quotes 7.8 times a run-rate £30 million that credits the newer gyms with mature earnings. On reported earnings the multiple is 9.4.

Invision of Zug took its majority in December 2023 and is out in under three years, selling to the one buyer for whom NonStop completed the map. Owners of multi-site businesses should expect the same two arguments: run-rate earnings for young sites, and what it would cost the buyer to build the network itself.

2. The buyers of small firms are being bought

On 1 October Schweizer Treuhand Holding of Steinhausen, managed by Winterberg Advisory, bought SMART Treuhand and its group companies. Stefan Widmer and Stéphanie Rauchenstein founded SMART in 2017 and built it by acquisition to almost 100 people in nine offices. On 27 October SMART completed its next purchase: Streicher & Brotschin Treuhand, Streicher & Brotschin Revision and AEQUITAS in Basel, a fiduciary firm founded in 1927.

Wealth management moved the same way. Cinerius of Zug, which groups 13 partner firms with more than EUR 20 billion, is taking a majority of Franz Martz & Söhne, a Saarbrücken wealth manager with more than half a billion euros, whose owners take Cinerius shares in return. DWS agreed to buy all of Peakside Capital Advisors of Zug, a property manager with more than EUR 1.7 billion and about 45 people, and its founders Stefan Aumann and Boris Schran stay.

For owners of small fiduciaries and wealth managers, the buyer is increasingly a platform with its own exit to deliver, and some pay in their own shares. That paper is a second sale, not cash. The question is who buys the platform, and when.

3. Large groups sell what no longer fits

On 22 October KKR agreed to buy IEP Technologies and Newson Gale from HOERBIGER, the diversified technology group headquartered in Switzerland. IEP builds systems that suppress and vent dust explosions, Newson Gale makes static grounding equipment for hazardous plants, and together they are most of HOERBIGER's safety unit. Closing is expected in the first quarter of 2027.

It was one of several. SITA, the Geneva-based IT cooperative owned by the airline industry, agreed on 15 October to buy Collins Aerospace Airport Solutions from RTX. UBS is handing the former Credit Suisse fund administration in Switzerland and Luxembourg to Northern Trust and leaving the business. Roche sold DKSH the rights to its antibiotic Rocephin in more than 80 markets, a brand with about CHF 61 million of sales in 2025. ABB sold Green, the data-centre operator, its Grossacher and Grändel site in Birr, about 250,000 square metres it had held in reserve.

Carve-outs come with a seller on a timetable and with the central costs the group used to carry: finance, IT, purchasing. Pricing those standalone costs is where these deals are won. Suppliers to the units now face a new owner, often one with a cost plan.

4. Bankruptcies stop rising, and move west

1,400 Swiss companies were declared bankrupt in October, level with the 1,395 of October 2025 and the first month this year without a rise; January to September were up by 9% to 121%. The 2025 rule that sends unpaid taxes and social contributions to the bankruptcy court has worked through the comparison. The level is still almost twice October 2024's 744.

Where companies fail has moved. Geneva recorded 274 bankruptcies and Vaud 208, Vaud's highest month since our archive starts in 2016. Together they were 34% of the national count, against 22% a year earlier. Zurich fell to 154 from 224, and Ticino to 79 from 147. Since 2016 Geneva and Vaud have both outnumbered Zurich in only three other months. Each canton's notices were spread over 20 publication days, so this is not one court clearing a backlog.

Buyers of distressed assets should be watching the liquidators in Geneva and Vaud. Most estates are small: 1,419 proceedings closed in October for lack of assets.

Also in October

Apple bought assets of Samplab of Altstätten, a music-software start-up, and hired some of its staff in June. An EU filing named Apple on 19 October; the Swiss register had shown the change on 2 July, when Samplab became Quitten GmbH, a holding company.

Galderma agreed on 14 October to buy ZO Skin Health of Irvine, California, for USD 1.5 billion in cash. DKSH agreed on 19 October to buy NewBridge Pharmaceuticals of Dubai for an enterprise value of USD 390 million.

Burkhalter bought Plasco of Steg, which waterproofs buildings and tunnels, with about 25 staff and CHF 6.5 million of sales, from owners planning their succession. Manager Josef Pfammatter and the name stay.

Nordson of Ohio completed on 23 October its purchase of Contrinex of Corminboeuf, which makes sensors for factory automation, from its owner Annette Heimlicher: about USD 168 million for some USD 50 million of revenue and nearly 500 staff.

Tillotts Pharma of Rheinfelden signed on 23 October to buy the Haupt Pharma Wülfing plant in Gronau, Germany, from Aenova, adding 280 staff to its 370.

Stryker completed its purchase of ZuriMED Technologies of Zurich, maker of the FiberLocker rotator-cuff implant, on 26 October. Five days earlier ZuriMED had transferred CHF 21.4 million of assets for no consideration to SpineCo AG, which had just issued exactly as many shares as ZuriMED has.

Swiss Prime Site agreed on 26 October to take its stake in FlexOffice, which runs managed offices at 11 locations, from 33% to 100%.

Migros proposed on 26 October to merge its ten regional cooperatives and the federation into one group cooperative. Its 2.3 million members vote in 2027.