Club Pilates has landed one of the largest multi-unit commitments in boutique fitness this year. On 1 July 2026, franchisee Saber Ammori signed a 70-unit development agreement with the brand, taking his total potential studio count to 84 and joining the ranks of Club Pilates’ largest multi-unit operators. The deal is structured through Renew Fitness, a new joint venture backed by Cohere Capital that will absorb Ammori’s existing 14 New York City-area studios and lead the buildout across Michigan, Maryland and New York.
Renew Fitness enters the market with immediate scale. The venture combines Ammori’s existing footprint with a fresh 70-studio development pipeline, cementing its position as one of the more significant Club Pilates franchisees in the U.S. system. The agreement is a development deal rather than a single-market territory grant, giving Renew Fitness runway across three states with meaningfully different demographic and real-estate profiles.
Ammori is not a first-time franchisee. He is the managing member, co-CEO and co-founder of Wireless Vision, an operator running more than 450 T-Mobile retail locations across the U.S. Outside of Wireless Vision and Renew Fitness, he holds active operating and investing interests across car washes, consumer services, real estate and other operating businesses. That background — deep experience running scaled, multi-location consumer retail — is exactly the operator profile modern boutique fitness systems have been trying to attract.
Multi-unit franchisees with real estate discipline and retail operating chops are typically the buyers who move a brand from good to institutional-grade. When capital of that type consolidates around a single boutique fitness concept, the read for the wider market is straightforward: the unit-level economics have been stress-tested in the field.
The formation of Renew Fitness with Cohere Capital is arguably the more strategically interesting piece of the announcement. Boutique fitness has increasingly become a category where private-equity-backed operator platforms are the natural buyer for large territory grants. By pairing an experienced operator with institutional capital, the JV structure de-risks the buildout — real estate deals move faster, corporate infrastructure can absorb 70 studios without breaking, and exit optionality is preserved from day one.
“There is still so much whitespace for Pilates in the U.S.” — Saber Ammori
In the same announcement, Xponential Fitness CEO Mike Nuzzo tied the deal to the durability of the Club Pilates model, noting that large multi-unit owners and area developers are “reinvesting in the brand.” That framing matters. Public parent Xponential Fitness (NYSE: XPOF) is under pressure to show that its flagship anchor brand can keep compounding through multi-unit buyers rather than one-studio owner-operators — the 70-unit Renew Fitness deal is a tangible answer.
The Renew Fitness deal is a U.S. story, but the read-through for franchise investors across Asia Pacific and MENA is meaningful. First, the model that is attracting scaled capital in the U.S. is the same reformer-Pilates concept that international master partners are being asked to underwrite in Asian and Gulf markets. Second, the operator-led, PE-backed development structure — where a single JV commits to dozens of studios rather than one — is exactly the playbook cross-border investors need to consider when they take country rights on a boutique fitness system. Territories move faster, brand standards hold better, and exits become bankable.
For international investors evaluating boutique fitness opportunities, the takeaway is less about Club Pilates specifically and more about the emerging shape of the buyer set: institutionally-backed multi-unit developers are becoming the default counterparty for premium boutique fitness rights. Structuring your entry to match that reality — deep local operator, disciplined capital partner, real development timetable — is what turns a country grant into a durable franchise business.
Source: Franchising.com — Club Pilates Franchisee Signs 70-Unit Development Deal
