SINGAPORE — Home-grown fitness chain True Fitness abruptly shut its operations in Thailand on Thursday (June 8), prompting customers to issue threats of legal action, Thai media report.

The firm, which was first established in Singapore in late 2004, failed to give its members any notice before calling it quits, and did not contact them to offer refunds or compensation, according to Khaosod English.

On Thursday, dozens of gym members showed up at the True Fitness branch in Bangkok’s Exchange Tower only to find out it had closed, Khaosod added.

There were three True Fitness outlets in Bangkok last year, including the one at Bangkok’s Exchange Tower. But in November, its CentralWorld outlet shut down and last week, the second outlet at Esplanade Ngamwongwan Khae-Rai shopping mall suspended services.

Khaosod reported that some members, including those who had just paid for new or extensions on their memberships, were planning to sue the Singapore company after they claimed to have been denied refunds.

In response to TODAY’s queries, a True Group’s spokesman said the company was unable to sustain its Thai operations “due to the challenging market conditions”. True Fitness in Thailand lost 49 million baht (S$1.99 million) in 2015, according to the Khaosod report.

“In Thailand, we are a minority partner and the past years have proved challenging, and unfortunately the businesses are no longer financially viable due to evolving market conditions,” the spokesman said.

“We had tried several attempts to rejuvenate the businesses but have not been able to get sufficient flexibility from our landlords and creditors to enable us to restructure the businesses in time, and the decision by our creditors to shut us down left us with no option but to close down our operations till we find suitable operators to take over the businesses.

Despite this, the spokesman added: “We are still open to looking for a suitable fitness and wellness operator who is willing to take over the business and we hope that this will happen soon.”

The company also assured customers that the closure in Thailand would not affect the Singapore outlets or a planned expansion in China announced earlier this year.

“The Singapore, Taiwan and China partnership is a totally different legal entity from Thailand. The terms of the partnership are specifically to grow the businesses in Singapore, China and Taiwan. As such, the closure in Thailand will not affect the Singapore outlets or the planned expansion as announced,” the spokesman said.