Week 17: RockBox Fitness
Boxing group fitness + another big acquisition
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Gm and happy turkey week fellow franchise fans!
Friendly reminder that there’s still time to grab a cajun-turkey from your local Popeyes 🤤.
In today’s edition we’ll cover another big franchise acquisition, as well as a breakdown of an under-the-radar fitness franchise.
Housekeeping announcement:
Effective immediately, The Wolf Report will now be sent 2x a week. It will typically be Monday & Thursday, but due to Thanksgiving this week, you’ll receive the second newsletter on Wednesday. It will contain a breakdown as well as other relevant content around franchising & small business ownership!
On to the headlines! 👇
Franchise Headlines
Roark Capital Acquires Mathnasium
The Players
Roark Capital, the majority owner of affiliate Inspire Brands, acquired the tutoring franchise Mathnasium for an undisclosed amount. If you’re not familiar with Roark/Inspire Brands, they are the owner of massive franchises such as Dunkin’, Sonic, Arby’s, and more.
Mathnasium is a math tutoring franchise for kids in grades 2-12. After being founded in 2002, they’ve grown to an international franchise with 1,082 locations worldwide, with 927 of those within the U.S.
At 1,000+ units, this acquisition was likely in the 9-figure range 💰💰
The Scoop
Big money acquisitions are fun to talk about, but to me the real story here is the power of franchising. In less than 20 years, three founders were able to take 1 local tutoring center, and turn it into a $100M+ brand with over 1,000 locations.
An absolutely incredible story! Read the press release here
More Headlines
Mici Handcrafted Italian Inks 30 Unit Deal
A new food franchise off to a big start in Phoenix!
An Inside Look at 4 Acai Bowl Concepts
Take a look at 4 franchises competing in the acai bowl arena
A Youth Sports Hold Co Acquired a Golf and Tennis Franchise
The acquisition is Youth Athlete’s United 3rd brand, this time a 59 unit franchise
Breakdown: RockBox Fitness
Fast Facts
Background
Founded in 2017
Based in North Carolina; 33 units open as of 2021
The brand operates boxing, kickboxing, & functional strength training fitness studios
Fees + Investment
Royalty: 7% of gross sales
Brand Fund: 1% of gross sales
Franchise Fee: $49,900
Initial Investment: $235K - $464K
Financial Performance
The below table illustrates the gross revenue, gross profit, and net income from 3 RockBox affiliate studios that operated the entire 2019 calendar year
The Wolf’s Take 🍟
Boutique fitness has been an area of insane growth over the last 10 years, and the public markets seems to have just learned that fact after the IPO’s of Xponential Fitness and F45 this year.
The pre-covid financials from RockBox affiliate locations show a solid return, with an average net income of $158,261 between the 3 units. This shows a 3:1 investment to profit ratio, which is not easy to find for franchises.
I also like RockBox because it’s a niche concept even within the world of boutique fitness, where it has minimal competitors. The main ones would be Rumble and Title Boxing, however both of those brands have initial investments that are larger than RockBox’s (Rumble’s is up to $4 Million/location).
If you want to jump on the boutique fitness wave, RockBox is a great brand to look at specifically because of the stage they’re at - founded just 4 years ago and already have 33 units open. The first franchisees are in and have taken the biggest risk, and now you can determine how they’ve performed thus far before deciding if RockBox could be right for you!
Recent News
Twitter Watch 👀
My thread last night dove into Chick-Fil-A’s origins and their unique approach to franchising - one that enables franchisees to pay a $10k investment and operate a restaurant that on average does a whopping $5M per year 🤑.
Follow @franchisewolf to see tweets like this in real time!
That’s it for this week’s Franchise Breakdowns. Feel free to reply with any questions or feedback, or leave a comment. If someone sent this your way and you haven’t subscribed yet, you can also do that below. Thanks and see you next week!
NOTICE REGARDING FRANCHISE INFORMATION
The Wolf of Franchises does NOT guarantee the financial performance of any franchise mentioned. The decision to purchase a licensed affiliate or franchise must be based on your own independent research. The Wolf of Franchises is not liable for any representation made by an affiliate, associate, marketing material, or Franchise Disclosure Document of a franchise with respect to real estate, financial, operations, or marketing performance of the business being acquired.
This information is not intended as an offer to sell, or the solicitation of an offer to buy, a franchise. It is for informational purposes only, and any financial data is based upon information provided by franchises in their respective Franchise Disclosure Document. The offer of a franchise can only be made through the delivery of a franchise disclosure document, from a certified seller of the brand, which The Wolf of Franchises makes no claim to be. Do not consider any information here as a guarantee of financial performance. The Wolf of Franchises has no affiliation or relationship of any kind with any of the brands covered in this newsletter, but simply provides data that is publicly available online or in Franchise Disclosure Documents.
All data from Franchise Disclosure Document’s is based on past performance, and if you were to purchase a franchise covered in the Wolf of Franchises newsletter, there is absolutely no guarantee that your business will perform similarly to existing owners of said franchise.