Wellbeing provider Wellhub has acquired Urban Sports Club (USC) in a $600 million (£443.5m) deal set to create a combined corporate wellness platform serving 5 million employees.
The provider said the Wellhub-USC platform will offer simpler global administration for employers, stronger employee engagement, and broader benefits coverage. This will give HR teams new tools to improve wellbeing, retention and productivity, while tackling the mounting costs of ill-health, the provider said.
The newly expanded firm will support 39,000 corporate clients and work with 97,000 wellness partners across 18 countries.
At a time when employee wellbeing is under scrutiny, the provider said the deal enables its platform to be the “gold standard” for corporate wellness.
Research from Gallup shows that despite employer investment in benefits, only 22 percent of employees strongly agree their organisation cares about their overall wellbeing. This is a steep drop from 49 percent in 2020.
By combining operations, Wellhub and USC aim to close this gap by offering employees personalised access to wellbeing services. This includes fitness, nutrition, and sleep and mental health support with one integrated platform.
Health and wellbeing benefits are increasingly important to employees as research by Wellhub conducted in January this year found that 88 percent of employees value wellbeing support as much as salary.
The partnership also gives wellness providers, from gyms to mindfulness apps, new opportunities to connect with millions of employees through corporate contracts.
Cesar Carvalho, co-founder and CEO of Wellhub, said the acquisition is about more than scale. “For too long, corporate benefits have been a ‘check the box’ exercise with massive investment leading to minimal employee engagement. Many companies spend more on coffee and alcohol than on wellbeing for their employees, even though 75 percent of healthcare costs are preventable. Our acquisition of Urban Sports Club isn’t just about becoming bigger; it’s about driving high enrolment and utilisation of a wellness benefit that employees will actually use.”
