KUALA LUMPUR, June 13 — The Singapore-based parent company of True Fitness Malaysia said today it has resolved the issue of outstanding payments owed to 70 staff here following the sudden closure of its Malaysia outlets over the weekend.
Citing an unnamed True Group representative, The Star Online reported that the fitness chain’s now jobless staff can expect to receive their salaries and commissions by next Monday.
“That has been resolved and the salaries and commissions have been sent to all staff and will be released on June 19,” the True Group spokesman was quoted saying.
He also told the news portal that its accounts were “held back” due to the announcement that the Malaysian operations were shuttering.
True Fitness Malaysia announced it was ending its three Selangor gym and spa centres located in Jaya 33, Taipan Subang and Sunway Giza, purportedly due to evolving market conditions.
An estimated 10,000 of its members here were reported to have been affected by the closure.
The Star Online reported the True Group spokesman blaming its failure to inform affected staff and members ahead of its closure on one of its creditors who filed an application to appoint a provisional liquidator before the company could arrange for the business to be restructured.
“We express our sympathies about the matter that has happened, we tried to exhaust all other options but there were no alternates available except to consolidate the business in Malaysia,” the representative was quoted saying.
The True Group spokesman further said the Malaysian operation had been suffering losses since the rollout of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in 2015, with the company bearing RM9.15 million that year and another RM7.26 million last year.
He claimed the group’s operations in Singapore, Taiwan and China had to “subsidise the losses in Malaysia”.
The True Group spokesman also clarified that his company is still in discussions with CHi Fitness to take over its members, and that no agreement had been reached.
