LA Fitness has lined up a $300 million loan from the government’s Main Street Lending Program, which provides emergency loans to help small- and medium-size businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic, said Robert Wilson, the gym operator’s general counsel, and The Wall Street Journal reported. Moody’s Investors Service cut the company’s debt rating in August. The company’s lenders hired PJT Partners Inc. in August in anticipation of talks on a possible restructuring or to secure additional financing. The $600 billion Main Street Lending Program is jointly managed by the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve and was designed to support more lending to borrowers who were in solid financial condition before the pandemic hit. Under the program, the Fed will purchase 95 percent of eligible loans made by banks. Privately owned LA Fitness parent Fitness International LLC, which operates more than 700 clubs across the country, carries $1.7 billion in debt. LA Fitness was founded in 1984 in the Los Angeles suburb of Covina and grew both organically and through acquisitions, including through a 2011 buyout of Bally Total Fitness.
