Bally is taking over the ownership of its stores in Hong Kong and China, where it is planning to expand on a direct basis. The Swiss company has already bought six of the 46 Bally stores in the region. Bally now has 126 directly operated stores around the world and a similar number of franchises. The company is budgeting sales of around 500 million Swiss francs in 2008, compared with the 400 million SF booked last year.