Virgin Active has agreed to be bought by the investment company owned by South African billionaire Christo Wiese for £682-million, prompting the UK health-club chain to cancel its plans to list on the JSE. Wiese's company, Brait, will take an 80% stake in Virgin Active, valuing the gym chain at £1.3-billion, Brait said yesterday.British entrepreneur Richard Branson's Virgin Group will retain a 20% stake, and London private equity firm CVC Capital Partners will sell its entire shareholding."Brait has been tracking Virgin since 2011 so we were able to move quickly on this opportunity," Brait's South Africa CEO, John Gnodde, said.Virgin Active is "very profitable and extremely cash-generative".Brait has been looking for targets on which to spend a R26.4-billion windfall it received from last year's sale of its stake in African retailer Pepkor Holdings. Investors have been pressuring the company to spend the cash.The Virgin Active deal represents less than 40% of the Pepkor funds and Brait will look for further acquisitions in the South African and European food and consumer goods markets, Gnodde said.Other Brait investments include UK food retailer Iceland.Virgin Active had appointed five banks to handle an initial public offering in Johannesburg by the end of June, it is believed.The IPO plans were cancelled on Wednesday night after the Brait deal was agreed. The idea "was ditched", Gnodde said. "It's not going to happen."Brait has an option to increase its stake in Virgin Active to above 80% but there are no immediate plans for it to do so, he said.Founded in the UK in 1999, Virgin Active has 267 clubs in nine countries, with more than 1.3million members, according to its website.It has more than 110 gyms in South Africa, more than in any other country, and generates about 60% of its profit in this country.The deal will help the company expand its network of health clubs in the Asia-Pacific region beyond Singapore and Thailand, and in existing markets, including the UK.Gnodde said Brait would "keep it very high-end" but wanted to open more lower-cost gyms under the Red brand."Although today's transaction is a testament to the huge amount the business has already achieved, we believe its future is more exciting," Branson, billionaire and founder of the Virgin Group, said.Wiese, South Africa's fourth-richest man, with a fortune of about $6.9-billion, owns about 35% of Brait. ..