Romania-born Therme bets £500M on Manchester wellness resort, backed by CVC
What's the deal? Therme GroupDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a European wellness operator founded in Romania, is building Therme Manchester, a large-scale water-based leisure resort on a 28-acre site beside the Trafford Centre. Recent coverage puts the project at about £500 million. It is also running a full-page advertisement in the Financial TimesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → to raise its international profile.
What does Therme do? The group runs wellness and spa destinations, including Therme Bucharest in Romania and Therme ErdingDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → in Germany. Together, those two sites welcome around 3.5 million guests a year.
Why now? In 2025, Therme completed a joint venture with private equity firm CVC Capital Partners, valued at more than €1 billion, to form a holding company called Therme Horizon. CVC and Therme are equal partners, with the platform owning the Bucharest and Erding sites and funding European expansion. CVC is co-investing in the Manchester project.
What's the endgame? Therme Horizon is designed as a growth platform — adding new sites, funding acquisitions, and upgrading existing facilities. Manchester, billed as the largest water-based wellbeing destination in Europe, is the flagship of that push. Therme is also advancing a London project, underlining a wider UK bet.
What could go wrong? The timeline has slipped. The Manchester opening has moved from an earlier target to early 2029, and large leisure builds face rising costs and execution risk.
The signal: A wellness operator born in Romania now has institutional private equity backing and a multi-site UK pipeline. The Financial Times advertisement — where a page-five slot starts at €96,000 for the UK edition — signals ambitions to compete, and market, on a global stage.
Read more: zf.ro
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
