US private equity group TPG Inc is divesting the 150-year Swiss high street footwear and leather accssories maker Bally International AG to a new luxury venture formed by Germany's billionaire Reimann family's Joh A. Benckiser SE, which owns perfume maker Coty Inc, the owner of Calvin Klein and Jennifer Lopez's Glow by JLo.

The agreement ends a nine-year struggling investment by the US financier, though with a modest profit said to be no more than $200 million. Benckiser is acquiring Bally through its Labelux Group, which is said to be paying just $600 million for the deal. TPG, which acquired Bally in 1999 from Swiss munitions producer Oerlikon-Buehrle Holding AG  with a view to turning it around, says the brand's sales have grown 10 per cent for the past three years.

TPG focussed on increasing the brand visibility in the luxury market with a view to turning it from a loss-making luxury shoe and leather goods firm to a commercially successful global luxury brand on par with Gucci and Prada. To stem losses TPG shut down of los making stores across Europe in the early 2000s.

The repositioning and restructuring took around five years but did not yield the anticipated results.

In 2007, it apointed former Verscae American footear designer Brian Atwood, popular in celebrity circles, as its creative director to reinvigorate the brand.

Bally currently has sales of about 500 million Swiss francs (approximately $497 million), with half the revenue from footwear sales and the rest from leather bags, accessories and ready-to-wear products.

Bally was founded by Carl Franz Bally in 1851. It products are sold in over 1,000 stores worldwide, with 250 outlets under its own name.

The Vienna-based oh A. Benckiser owns a 14 per cent stake in trhe London-listed household products group Reckitt Benckiser.