Patria fully exits Brazil's Smartfit

SAO PAULO, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Brazilian investment firm Patria Investments PAX.O said on Monday it offloaded its entire stake in gym chain Smartfit SMFT3.SA in an 890 million real ($172.3 million) deal.

• Patria first invested in Smartfit in 2010, 11 years before the gym chain's initial public offering (IPO) in Sao Paulo.

• Patria had been reducing its stake in Smartfit, and owned 42.4 million shares, or 6.9%, of the gym chain before the deal, according to Smartfit data from earlier this month.

• "The divestment has more to do with allocation strategy than with the sector's or the firm's performance," Luis Felipe Cruz, partner at Patria, told Reuters.

• Smartfit's shares fell 3.3% on Monday, while Brazil's equities benchmark index Bovespa .BVSP fell 0.9%.

($1 = 5.1648 reais)