Bally to Acquire Crunch Fitness

Bally Total Fitness Holding Corp., North America’s biggest operator of health clubs, agreed to buy Crunch Fitness for about $90 million in stock and cash to increase its appeal to young, urban clients.

New York-based Crunch, which will operate as a separate brand, has 80,000 members at 19 health clubs in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, San Francisco and Atlanta.

Bally will issue about 3 million common shares to holders of closely held Crunch. That values the stock portion of the purchase at about $63.6 million, based on Bally’s closing price Friday.

Crunch, founded in 1989, has been establishing a trendy brand identity with campaigns marketing a “no judgments” philosophy and combining fashionable Crunch clothes, videos, books and music with exercise classes such as Cycle Karaoke.

Bally plans to double the number of Crunch facilities within five years by acquiring health clubs and converting some Bally Total Fitness centers to the Crunch brand, a spokesman said. Shares of Chicago-based Bally rose 29 cents to $21.49 on the NYSE.