Back in the summer, Therme went public with a somewhat perplexing development in its corporate life — a €1 billion merger of its two, somewhat related, operating divisions: Therme Erding, which owns the legacy spa in Munich built by founder Josef Wund and Therme’s Bucharest location, constructed just under a decade ago and helmed by CEO Robert Hanea.
The new entity, dubbed Therme Horizon, would also “co-invest” in the company’s long-delayed Manchester spa, which remains a fallow industrial site in a large mall area in a suburb known as Trafford City. The operator will be a U.K. asset management firm called Peel Waters, and the current target opening date is either 2027 or 2028.
The previously undisclosed fact that these were distinct entities was first reported last April by the New York Times, which noted that the company “misrepresented” itself to the Ontario government in regards to the details of its corporate structure. The Times investigation “revealed [that] Therme falsely presented itself as an industry player that operated as many as half a dozen spas in Europe. In fact, it had built and operated just one, outside Bucharest.”
These corporate moves also introduced a new player into Ontario’s Therme drama — a sprawling Luxembourg-based private equity firm known as CVC Capital Partners, which currently has €201 billion invested in dozens of corporate assets around the world. The company dates back to the early 1980s, when Citicorp spun off its venture investment arm.
CVC’s portfolio includes the luxury watch brand Breitling and the Lipton teas group, as well as firms in sectors such as insurance, infrastructure, business services, chemicals, health care, sports teams and consumer goods. It owns two Canadian companies — a Quebec City ad agency, Plus Company, and TechInsights, a technology market analysis consultancy based in Nepean, Ont. Therme Horizon is listed among CVC’s consumer/retail holdings, which is a grab bag of brands, online educational offerings and at least two digital gaming platforms.
Typically, the way private equity companies raise capital is through offerings to limited partnership (LP) funds, which become the vehicles for investing is specific companies. The Therme Horizon investment came from CVC Capital Partners IX, which finished amassing a €26 billion war-chest in July, 2023, targeting deals in Europe and the Americas.
While CVC’s new stake in Therme’s European and U.K. spas could indicate further capital investments in, or loans to, the company’s other spa projects, including the one at Ontario Place, there’s no guarantee, as private equity firms tend to be highly opportunistic with their acquisitions. What we do know, however, is that a buyout fund with very deep pockets has placed a bet on the company’s destination wellness vision.
Here’s what else Spacing has found out about CVC Capital Partners IX:
Where it’s located
According to Securities and Exchange Commission documents, Fund IX is domiciled in Jersey, a U.K. island off the shore of France, and Luxembourg. Both locations listed on the SEC disclosure appear to be storefronts. Jersey and Luxembourg rank eighth and tenth on the Corporate Tax Haven Index, which is used by multi-lateral entities such as the European Commission and the United Nations. An earlier tax haven ranking published in 2019 listed Jersey as “up there with the worst” jurisdictions for practices that allow corporations to dodge taxes.
Its other investments
Since it stopped fundraising, Fund IX has completed a handful of acquisitions besides Therme, including Therakos, a dermatology treatment equipment manufacturer, and Smiths Detection, a security screening firm with technology deployed in airports and other critical infrastructure sites. The target region is Europe/Americas. According to CVC’s half-year report (i.e., as of June 30, 2025), about 35 to 40% — or roughly €6.5 billion — of the €26 billion has been “deployed” since 2024, while the fund has earned about €7.7 billion by selling off assets to other investment firms or other CVC funds.
The investors behind Fund IX
The whole point of private equity is that wealthy investors want to lower the regulatory blinds so they can direct their capital without all the disclosure required of publicly traded companies. There’s not a whole lot of public realm information about Fund IX’s backers, but some has surfaced. The 459 investors, or LPs, that contributed seed money include two American public-sector pension plans — the Indiana Public Retirement System (details are behind a Proquest paywall) and the State of Wisconsin Investment Board. “The largest LPs are mainly sovereign wealth funds, as well as pension funds, and are primarily domiciled in North America, Asia and the Middle East,” according to a 2024 press release from Fitch Ratings.
Sovereign wealth funds are established by countries with excess revenues from natural resources or exports as a means of shielding such income from currency fluctuations. Their ranks include some of the world’s largest investors, among them several created by various Saudi states.
One of Therme’s newer proposed projects is a site in Dubai, in the UAE. the renderings surfaced, alongside a promotional video, last February. They feature a fantastical multi-level spa designed by Diller Scofinio & Renfro.
Therme’s ever-changing roster of planned sites now includes Dallas, Washington, D.C., Singapore and Incheon, as well as Ontario Place. Earlier announcements for Therme spas in New York and Glasgow have disappeared from the firm’s current portfolio. It’s not at all clear whether CVC plans to use Therme Horizon as a vehicle to finance any or all of these locations.
