Bally had been a public company and produced annual revenues north of $1 billion until 2007, when it filed for bankruptcy. In 2009, after Bally’s second bankruptcy in 17 months, JP Morgan received 50.5 percent of Bally’s equity, and Anchorage Advisors received 33.7 percent in a reorganization plan approved in bankruptcy court.

Bally’s roots go back 80 years to a company called Lion Manufacturing, which later became Bally Manufacturing. The company grew in the entertainment industry for the next 50 years. In 1983, Bally Manufacturing purchased Health and Tennis Corp. of America, creating Bally Health and Tennis Corp., a subsidiary of Bally Entertainment.

In 1995, the Bally Total Fitness name was developed after Bally Health and Tennis Corp. consolidated all of its various clubs under one name. Industry icons Jack LaLanne and Vic Tanny had owned Bally clubs at various times. In 1996, Bally Total Fitness Holding Corp. emerged from Bally Health and Tennis Corp., a move that completely separated the health and fitness arm of the Bally operation from the Bally gaming and entertainment arm. At one point in the 1990s, Bally operated almost 400 clubs in the United States and Canada.

Since it was founded in 1984, LA Fitness has remained an intensely private company, one that is reluctant to share information publicly. LA Fitness takes on the persona of its founder, Chin Yi, a Korean-born immigrant who came to the United States when he was a boy. In the past two years, however, LA Fitness has released more information about several of its club openings.

In addition to its executive management team, LA Fitness is owned by three main investment companies: Seidler Equity Partners, Marina del Ray, CA; CIVC Partners, Chicago; and Madison Dearborn Partners, Chicago. Seidler Partners has been with LA Fitness since 1998, and CIVC Partners joined the company in the early 2000s. In 2007, Madison Dearborn acquired a 20 percent stake in LA Fitness for a reported $600 million.

The strategy of LA Fitness has been to acquire and operate underperforming clubs. That strategy helped the company flourish in the 1990s. In 1995, LA Fitness designed and built a 45,000-square-foot club that has become the signature model for the company. Typically, LA Fitness clubs range from 20,000 to 60,000 square feet.

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