Dusseldorf Fitness entrepreneur Rainer Schaller was on board the crashed private plane in South America. A spokeswoman for the McFit Holding RSG Group confirmed this to the Handelsblatt on Monday. A business jet en route from Mexico to Costa Rica crashed into the sea on Friday evening. The cause of the accident is still unclear.
The partner of the 53-year-old entrepreneur and her children from a previous relationship were also on board. In addition, two other people were on the plane, according to the RSG Group.
It must therefore be feared that the family entrepreneur died in the crash. The Coast Guard first found parts of the fuselage, seats and several pieces of luggage around 28 kilometers from Limón Airport. Rescuers later found two dead. Several backpacks and duffel bags were also seen in a video provided by the Ministry of Security.
The company does not want to confirm the death of Schaller. “Since the situation is still being investigated on site, we cannot comment further at this time,” said the spokeswoman. The Coast Guard has suspended the search for missing persons for the time being. The government in San Jose announced that the weather conditions were difficult.
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Schaller’s work was characterized by entrepreneurial advancement. The McFit chain has made the founder, who was born in Bamberg, the best-known fitness entrepreneur in Germany. He established the principle of fitness chains, and at a discount price. His fortune is estimated at 250 million euros.
The plane crashed for unknown reasons.
(Photo: FlightRadar24)
Schaller’s RSG Group, which stands for Rainer Schaller Global, includes 21 brands, including the luxury offerings John Reed, Gold’s Gym and Holmes Place. From the key field in Bavaria, the family entrepreneur has built 1000 studios in 48 countries. The group employs 41,000 people, 6.4 million people train there or use the digital offers. In Germany, the RSG Group is the leader with a market share of around eleven percent.
Schaller’s career began with a classic education. He left high school after the tenth grade, including a lap of honor for Latin, and trained as a retail salesman. At the age of 27, he is the boss of four Edeka stores. According to Schaller, he works 100 hours a week.
First McFit studio in 1997 in Würzburg
In the early 1990s, Schaller started fitness, his role model being Arnold Schwarzenegger. What he finds in his training sessions are “many from the red light scene or former bodybuilders”, as he explained in an interview with the Handelsblatt in the summer of 2019. There were hardly any fitness chains back then. To test this business model, he puts used fitness equipment in his parents’ attic. His friends can train there for 15 marks per month.
With his fitness chain McFit, Schaller became a multiple millionaire.
(Photo: imago images/Christian Kielmann)
In 1997 he converted an old furniture hall in Würzburg and opened the first McFit studio there. His parents were shocked. “It was as if I wanted to open a solarium. That was not recognized at all,” he said in an interview with the Handelsblatt at the time. At first, Schaller does everything: train, clean, manage.
>> Read more: “I wanted to be number 1 with McFit, but I had no idea”
A tolerable business model has developed from Schaller’s attic idea: According to the Federal Gazette, in 2019 the group made sales of almost 360 million euros, leaving a surplus of more than 26 million euros. In the first year of the corona crisis, 2020, revenues drop to 280 million euros because Schaller’s studios have to close as a result of the lockdown. The bottom line is a minus of 31 million euros. Despite the pandemic, Schaller took over the well-known bodybuilder chain Gold’s Gym for $ 100 million in the same year.
Organizer of the Loveparade disaster in Duisburg
The name of the multimillionaire is closely linked to the Loveparade catastrophe in Duisburg. At the techno event in 2010, 21 people die after a mass panic and hundreds are injured. Schaller had organized the event with his company Lopavent, McFit was the main sponsor. Schaller is not charged, testifies in court as a witness. There he puts it on record that he relied on his employees for the planning.
As the organizer of the Loveparade 2010, Schaller was criticized because 21 people lost their lives at the event.
(Photo: imago/Hermann J. Knippertz)
After 184 days of negotiations, the complex procedure ends in May 2020 without a verdict. Schaller then says he bears the “moral responsibility” for the tragedy. As a Catholic, he learned that everything negative also has something positive. “I just haven’t been able to see anything positive here,” he told the Handelsblatt at the time.
There is a Rainer Schaller before the catastrophe and one after. He had become more thoughtful and looked for answers in different religions. “But I still haven’t found an answer to this day.” Because of the Love Parade, the news of the entrepreneur’s crashed small plane was sometimes met with malice. But there is also sympathy.
Schaller’s successor is unclear
Flight data shows that the route of Schaller’s Piaggio P.180 Avanti aircraft off the coast of Costa Rica ends abruptly. However, the pilot is said not to have reported any difficulties at any time.
“We are shocked, stunned and saddened by the tragic accident,” said the spokeswoman for the RSG Group. It is currently still unclear who will continue the business of the fitness chains and who will take over the entrepreneurial legacy of the founder. Most recently, Schaller withdrew from the operative business and dealt with strategic issues.
In his penthouse in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg district, Schaller had recreated a McFit using original equipment. The man who made the crowds sweat trained there three to four times a week to the last.
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