In UK, gyms emerge as unlikely market winners despite Covid variants     

Gym operators are outperforming companies well-placed to ride any economic rebound from the reopening

As lockdowns ease, people are flooding back to their health clubs, while the newly fitness-conscious are signing up in droves, according to preliminary numbers from the UK gym industry. File picture

Packing sweaty, heavy-breathing strangers into enclosed spaces may seem like a disastrous business model for the post-pandemic era. But you wouldn’t know it from the love investors are showing shares and bonds of gyms in the UK.

Gym Group’s shares have jumped about 28% this year, recouping almost all its losses from Covid-19 closures.