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Anne Mahlum sells D.C.-based fitness chain solidcore nearly a decade after its founding
Anne Mahlum has sold her shares in solidcore, the D.C.-based fitness chain she started nearly a decade ago, to New York private equity firm Kohlberg & Co.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Kohlberg & Co. along with Salt Lake City’s Peterson Partners and San Francisco’s VMG Partners are now majority owners in the company, solidcore said in a Tuesday announcement. The three private equity firms previously invested in solidcore.
“Creating and scaling solidcore has been one of the greatest joys of my life,” Mahlum said in a statement. “I’m wildly grateful to every single team member, client and investor who have contributed to building this incredible company that has enriched so many people’s lives, including mine.”
Mahlum is putting “millions of dollars” from the sale into an incentive pool she created in 2018 for solidcore employees, the company said. All full-time employees who have been with the company for at least year prior to the sale will receive a portion of the proceeds.
“Sharing some of the financial upside with my team is just the right thing to do,” Mahlum said.
Bryan Myers, who was handed the CEO position two years ago as Mahlum shifted to an executive chairwoman role, will remain in his position following the sale. Myers has been with the company for more than five years, previously working as chief operating officer and president. Mahlum said Bryan’s leadership was “one of the main reasons” she felt confident selling the business.
Myers said in a statement he will oversee the next chapter of “growth and expansion” for solidcore.
The company said in a post on Instagram that there will be “no changes to the company, its goals, or the team as a result of this transaction.”
Solidcore said it now counts 99 fitness studios across 24 states with large presences in Greater Washington and New York City. It has rebounded from the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, when local restrictions prevented solidcore from hosting in-person classes and it laid off 98% of its staff before building it back up. That year, Mahlum was also accused of mistreating and sexually harassing employees and preventing them from organizing, according to an investigation from Buzzfeed News that prompted several of the company’s fitness coaches to call for her ouster.
If there had been any validity to the claims in the Buzzfeed story, Mahlum told the Washington Business Journal in March 2021, she would not have stayed on as solidcore’s executive chairwoman after handing the reins to Myers. She also said she was not forced out as CEO, and that the company instituted a third-party hotline for staffers to file complaints.
Mahlum also said in that interview she had retained consultants as far back as mid-2019 to explore selling the company, but that the pandemic delayed those efforts.
“It wasn’t the right time to sell the company, and it wasn’t the right time for its founder and CEO to leave the company,” Mahlum said about 2020, adding she didn’t see the valuations she was seeking for the company at that time.
Mahlum was a Women Who Mean Business honoree from the Washington Business Journal in 2019.
Lowenstein Sandler LLP represented Mahlum in the sale, while Piper Sandler & Co. served as exclusive financial adviser to solidcore. Solidcore was represented by Ropes & Gray LLP and Kohlberg & Co. was represented by Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP.
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