Five London fitness brands closed on the same day. Barrecore, Boom Cycle, Kobox, Reformcore and Triyoga all went dark, and members found out by email.
So did the instructors. According to the BBC, teaching staff learned the business had stopped from the same message that went to customers, after weeks of late payments. Wages due on 17 September were not paid. More than 100 Triyoga employees have since gone to the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain to try to recover them.
The parent company is Common Bond. It sells 12 months of unlimited classes for £2,400.
Has Common Bond gone into administration?
No, and this is the part worth understanding. Companies House lists Common Bond Ltd as active. There is no insolvency process recorded and no administrator appointed. The studios are shut, the staff are unpaid, and the company is still, on paper, trading. For a member who paid £2,400 in advance, that means there is nobody to send a claim to. No insolvency practitioner has been appointed to collect one.
That is a worse position than a formal insolvency, not a better one. When True Fitness closed in Singapore this month, liquidators were appointed within days and a creditors' meeting was set. We wrote about what that means for prepaid packages, and the short version is that customers holding prepaid balances usually rank as unsecured creditors (the group paid last, and usually least, when a company's assets are shared out). Ranking last in a queue is bad. Having no queue to stand in is worse.
The studios are shut, the staff are unpaid, and the company is still, on paper, trading.
The Run RateThe same studios already failed once
These brands were owned by United Fitness Brands. That company is in liquidation. Its accounts have been overdue since December 2024 and its confirmation statement since October 2025.
Common Bond Ltd was incorporated on 17 June 2025 and picked up the brands. It registered the same two business codes United Fitness Brands used: head office activities, and fitness facilities. Same studios, same trade, new company.
Fifteen months later it has stopped.
| United Fitness Brands | Common Bond | |
|---|---|---|
| Incorporated | October 2020 | June 2025 |
| Brands | Barrecore, Boom Cycle, Kobox, Triyoga | The same, plus Reformcore |
| Business codes | 70100, 93130 | 70100, 93130 |
| Status now | In liquidation | Active, no insolvency filed |
| How members found out | Studio closures through 2025 | One email, all sites at once |
What the filings show that the press release wouldn't
Common Bond has had five directors in fifteen months. Four of them resigned.
One lasted three weeks. Another lasted six. The managing director appointed on 1 June 2026 resigned on 10 August, six weeks before the studios closed. The only director still serving was appointed in February and is resident in Spain.
You cannot run five premium studio brands on a board that empties every few months. Whatever was wrong here was visible in the filings before it was visible on the door.
The instructors found out with the members
Teaching staff had been chasing late payments for weeks. Then the closure reached them in a message written for customers.
That is not only unfair, it is operationally backwards. In a boutique studio the instructor is the relationship. Members do not book a brand, they book a person and a 7am slot. When something goes wrong, the instructor is who members text first, and at Common Bond those instructors knew exactly as much as the people asking them.
More than 100 Triyoga employees have now gone to the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain over unpaid wages. Whatever is recovered, the staff who held those member relationships are already gone.
What this means for your gym or studio
You do not need to be anywhere near this to feel it. Members read these stories, and the question they take away is about you.
Know your prepaid number. Add up every unused class, pack and prepaid month at the price the member paid. That total is what you owe members today. Most operators have never worked it out, and it is the first figure a lender, a buyer or a nervous member would ask for.
Have an answer ready. Someone will ask what happens to their credits if you close. "That won't happen" is not an answer. A sentence about how you hold that money is.
Watch the structure, not just the brand. A member buying an annual package is lending you money. If your business sits inside a group, the thing that fails is rarely the studio they love. It is the company above it. That was true in Singapore, where the parent carried the net liabilities, and it is true here.
Barrecore members did not buy a balance sheet. They bought a class. The class was fine. Twice.