Soho House to focus on improving member experience over new openings

The chief executive of Soho House has sought to shake off doubts about the company amid growing speculation about its future.

Andrew Carnie told an investor call on Friday the private member’s club was “still as special as when we opened our first house in 1995”.

It comes amid growing pressure on the expanding brand, which since listing on the New York stock exchange in 2021 has faced criticism from members over the quality of its offering. One told The Guardian the group didn’t “feel special” any longer while the New York Post spoke to more than a dozen members in February who declared it was “now uncool”.

Soho House also became a target for Wall Street short sellers GlassHouse earlier this year, with the firm warning the member’s club was “facing an existential crisis” and was essentially worthless.

Soho House rejected the claims, and Carnie said Friday the group was working with a forensic accounting firm and a global law firm to review its accounts and counter “any misleading statements”.

“I want to acknowledge our continued confidence in how we run our business and our accounting practices,” he said.

The exclusive member’s club, which has never posted a profit, saw net losses shrink from £172m in 2022 to £93m in 2023.

Adjusted EBITDA more than doubled last year, growing 110% to £100.5m while total revenue rose 17% to around £860m.

Soho House welcomed 32,000 new members worldwide in 2023, a 20% increase year-on-year which took its total membership to 194,000.

Its waitlist for membership hit a new record high of 99,000, up from 86,000 at the start of 2023, which Carnie said demonstrated the “continued appeal of Soho House globally”.

However, the group has stopped accepting new members in London, New York and Los Angeles this year to prevent its clubs becoming too overcrowded.

Soho House launched on London’s Greek Street in 1995 as a hub for people working in the creative industries and has expanded to more than 50 sites including hotels and co-working spaces worldwide.

It now runs 13 houses in the UK, where global membership costs over £2,900 a year.

Carnie said a focus on improving the membership experience had led to the recent refurbishment of the pool and rooftop at White City House in London while a well-known London restaurant was set to open at its Soho Farmhouse site this spring.

He said that while members were visiting sites more often, spending on food and drink at its clubs had dropped slightly.

This year will see the launch of Soho Mews House in London’s Mayfair as well as Soho House Manchester, the group’s first club in the north of England with a gym, overnight bedrooms, rooftop pool and bar, and events spaces.

Carnie said Soho House had more than 20 new houses in the pipeline but only planned to open between two and four sites a year due to ongoing development delays.

“We don’t want to use our own capital to open houses we don’t want to have any unnecessary pre-opening costs or miss opening schedules for our members. So, we’re just choosing to slow down a wee bit for the moment for the next 18 months to two years.”

Carnie added there was no update on plans to potentially take the company private but said the board and affiliates had received interest from buyers “on a number of occasions”.