Private Equity-owned Companies in Times Square 

1633 Broadway

Private equity owners: North Castle Partners & J.W. Childs Associates

Owned by private equity: 2000-2006

Deal value: $100 million

Employees: 5,000

These clubs are almost too pretty to sweat in, besides you want to look good for all the movie stars you’ll see there. High-end fitness and health is the specialty of buyout shop North Castle Partners, which has owned Red Door spas, Naked Juice, Alba Cosmetics and Equinox Fitness. Purchasing Equinox for about $100 million in 2000, North Castle turned Pilates classes into cash and in 2006 sold the company to a New York real estate developer for $505 million. In the company press release announcing the Equinox sale, North Castle also announced their exit from a deal involving a drug-rehab company. The announcement did not say whether the two firms shared any celebrity clientele. An employee at the Times Square club told us he was paid $8 an hour, hardly enough to afford designer gym clothes.