The fitness fanatic who aims to bulk up the health clubs sector

There isn't much that phases Fred Turok. But when the compère for the Entrepreneur of the Year awards bash made a cheap joke at the expense of his broken leg, the hard-nut South African health and fitness fanatic was clearly ruffled.

"I was particularly embarrassed when that bloody idiot – well, I'll be careful what I say to you – when Bob Monkhouse said, 'And here we have Fred Turok, chief executive of LA, ha ha ha, we can't say Fitness, because he's on crutches'," he says, his slightly clipped vowels betraying his Cape Town origins.

The beefy health club boss has been hobbling around since a lorry knocked him off his motorbike last November. He swears, largely for his wife's benefit, that the accident (which wasn't his fault) has ended his 25-year passion for fast bikes. He gestures, with an air of resignation, to his crutches: "I'm basically mobile. I just hobble a bit. It's inconvenient." For inconvenient read annoyed at having to let a friend teach his beloved twice-weekly aerobics class. "That I will go back to," he adds.

Judging from the obscured view I had of him behind his desk, the tracksuited, stocky Mr Turok hasn't given in to the temptation to run to fat. A virtuous salad, fetched by a lackey from a nearby caff, sits on his desk (it remains untouched throughout our interview, so maybe it was for show). Not one to miss an opportunity to plug his chosen profession, he proffers: "I swim and do weights. Working out is very important to me because I do a stressful job."

LA Fitness is Mr Turok's baby. The former PE teacher re-mortgaged his house (and yes, he did tell his wife) to buy his first club in Victoria, central London. In typically self-assured mode, he recalls: "It was more of a step of faith for my wife. I had complete confidence in myself." Initially, the business was a family affair. He ran the operations side and she handled the admin and members. Twelve years later, there are 53 clubs, including one in Barcelona. The "three Ts" who masterminded the group's growth – David Turner (the corporate development director), Jeremy Taylor (the operations director) and Mr Turok – were joined by a "fourth T", Richard Taylor, the finance director, before LA floated on the stock market in 1999.

Very little has changed, in fact, except that despite the boom in fitness fads, the health and fitness sector is about as popular with the City as a wet February morning training run. In just over one year, three quoted companies have been taken private and a third, Holmes Place, is set to follow. Valuations tumbled as investors took fright at problematic trading that clubs at the premium end of the market were experiencing. Fears spiralled that in the wake of 11 September purse strings would be tightened and people would stop spending money on life's little luxuries, such as belonging to a private health club.

But Mr Turok is unerringly pragmatic. Because his chain of fitness clubs is pitched at the "Tesco Metro" end of the market, he argues their affordability and convenience will win out in any serious economic downturn. His thickset head is brimming with statistics to support this view. Only 6.5 per cent of the UK adult population belongs to a gym, compared with 14 per cent of their US counterparts. Yet, conversely, a mere 25 per cent of UK adults is clinically obese, against 60 per cent of Americans.

Yes, yes, I say, but isn't the problem that us Brits just aren't narcissistic enough to bother with all that pumping iron and skimpy Lycra? "The key thing is not worrying about looks. Looks is not the debate," he says. "In the olden days looks is what it was all about. Jane Fonda. Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's not about looks any more. This is about health. And it's about the heart. It's about looking after your health via your heart fitness. The aesthetic element is a separate issue. People who body build are not necessarily healthy.

"It's about wellness," he spouts. "It's about deciding that exercise makes you three times less likely to suffer from a heart attack. If you're over 40 and you exercise, you are three times less likely to suffer from breast cancer. Where is there a more compelling argument for women over 40 to work out than that?"

Which leaves the issue of LA Fitness's floundering share price. Despite consistently hitting its financial targets, the stock has been on a downward trajectory for most of the year. Yet there is plenty of growth left for the group. It stands to meet its pre-flotation aim of opening 70 clubs by next July. And it fully anticipates playing a large role in the inevitable consolidation that will determine the immature sector's ultimate winners and losers.

Mr Turok is convinced that the tide of negative option has turned. "Investors have tarred us as a company with the same brush that they've tarred the whole sector. And we've ended up suffering from that. But I know that this is changing." To prove his point, he recently waded into the market to bulk up his shareholding to more than 15 per cent.

Shareholders needn't worry that Mr Turok is frittering their money away on day-to-day expenses. LA Fitness's HQ is a shabby, dark hole at the back of an unprepossessing building in London's East End. He explains that the deafening noise of sawing and drilling is workmen putting in air conditioning. "I'm a cheapskate," he admits freely. "The only reason I'm putting it in now is because it's the end of the summer and I know no one will use it."

While the 47-year-old has no imminent plans to hang up his trainers and head back to the Cape, where he was born, his social conscience is clearly pricking him hard these days. Mr Turok's parents, who were jailed for their ANC activism when he was 10, are both politicians in the South African government and Turok junior would like to give something back as well.

One of his brothers (the one who is a professor of theoretical physics at Cambridge as opposed to the one who is an economics professor at Glasgow) runs a charity to encourage black people to qualify as mathematicians. Throwing yet more statistics at me, he says that just four black people qualified as mathematicians last year out of a population of 32 million.

"The idea is to reverse the brain drain and to educate black people," he said. "Whether I go into politics or whether I go into some sort of consultancy role in terms of helping development, who knows. What's more important is that I have a clear ambition of wanting to put something back into South Africa and help it in this process of development from an apartheid state into a true democracy."

FRED TUROK FIT TO LEAD

Title: Chief executive, LA Fitness.

Age: 47.

Pay: £151,000.

Hobbies: Aerobics, horseriding, motorbikes (latterly).

Career history: After 11 changes of school, including one expulsion, he started out as a PE teacher. Strapped for cash, he joined the fitness club group David Lloyd Leisure. Re-mortgaged house to buy first club in 1990. Acquired LA Fitness brand and club in 1996 from a New Zealander who took photos of Diana, Princess of Wales while working out. Raised venture capital money from 3i to build up the group before floating it in 1999.