Fitness billionaire Nerio Alessandri’s customers are pumping more and living longer, and doctors are noticing. That’s a trend the founder of Technogym SpA says will help keep his business independent as it shifts toward the health sector.
(Bloomberg) — Fitness billionaire Nerio Alessandri’s customers are pumping more and living longer, and doctors are noticing. That’s a trend the founder of Technogym SpA says will help keep his business independent as it shifts toward the health sector.
Weight training “will increasingly be recognized as a treatment by national health authorities,” Alessandri, who serves as both chairman and chief executive officer, said in an interview.
Technogym, whose strength and cardio machines are familiar to just about anyone with a gym membership, has already sold equipment to 6,000 hospitals, and in the medium term the health sector is the “part of our business that’s growing fastest,” the CEO said.
The 62-year-old Alessandri and younger brother Pierluigi set up Technogym in their garage in Cesena, Italy. An early mover in linking fitness with technology through innovations like workout heart monitors, Technogym became a buzzword among bodybuilders like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The company eventually grew to become a nine-time supplier to the Olympic Games with a market value of about €1.7 billion ($1.9 billion). Technogym on Thursday reported first-quarter revenue of €174.6 million, beating analyst estimates.
The CEO said in the interview that he wants to keep the company independent and family-controlled for at least the next 50 years. “I tell everyone I have three children — the third being Technogym,” he said.
Equipment made by the firm, which was founded in 1983 and listed shares in 2016, can be found in about 90,000 fitness centers around the world. It is also in around 14,000 hotel fitness centers and, importantly, hospitals.
Exercise will increasingly be recognized as a treatment by national health authorities, the CEO predicted, adding that
fitness subscriptions could routinely become tax-deductible.
For Technogym, the next stage is to become “more and more a lifestyle entity,” Alessandri said, appealing to an older, health-conscious demographic.
Selling equipment that could help end-users live longer may give Technogym a head start over companies — in industries from technology to consumer to telecoms — looking to recast themselves as health-oriented players and appeal to more affluent, older consumers as life expectancy rises.
Investors are tracking that trend closely. Despite a slowdown last year, health innovation funding has been on an upward trend since 2010, according to sector investment company StartUp Health.
For Alessandri, the link between fitness training and health is already obvious, but he expects the medical profession to make it even clearer. As he sees it, in the future, “doctors will prescribe patients an hour of Technogym per day.”
–With assistance from Alberto Brambilla.
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