TPG Inc. agreed to sell Swiss shoe brand Bally International AG to a new luxury venture formed by Germany's billionaire Reimann family, ending a nine-year investment by the U.S. leveraged buyout firm. The family's Joh A. Benckiser SE, which owns perfume maker Coty Inc., is buying Bally through Labelux Group, which plans more luxury purchases.


 


Terms were not disclosed. Labelux is paying no more than about $600 million for Bally, three people familiar with the situation told Bloomberg News.


 


Bally's sales have risen at least 10% for the past three years, according to Fort Worth, Texas-based TPG. The firm bought Bally in 1999 aiming to turn the brand around after years of losses, and is selling it after almost twice the usual length that private-equity firms hold on to their investments.


 


“This has been a solid investment for TPG and illustrates our ability to revive and significantly grow challenged businesses,'' TPG principal Bastian Lueken said in a statement. The buyout firm paid 200 million Swiss francs for Bally, a sum that was worth about $131 million in 1999.


 


The Reimanns had the tenth-largest fortune in Germany in a 2006 list compiled by Manager Magazin, with net worth estimated at 5.05 billion euros.