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HER GREATEST hits tour sold out within hours and the new line of her highly popular lingerie business looks set for success. It seems we still cannot help but love Kylie.

But behind the sweet, girl-next-door image are a series of shrewd investments which seem certain to keep Kylie in the top flight of pop divas.

Like the diminutive singer herself, Kylie Minogue's business empire is small but perfectly formed. In 2003, BBC3's Liquid Assets investigation into "Kylie's Millions" estimated her earnings and investments at pounds 30m. Compared with Madonna's pounds 215m fortune or Jennifer Lopez's pounds 100m, Minogue, 36, is a mini- mogul, but the branding of Love Kylie fashion lingerie around her saucy and sweet image is little short of genius.

This week, within a month of announcing her spring 2005 greatest hits tour Showgirl, Minogue unveiled a collection of Cabaret-style hosiery called Love Kylie Legs - a brand extension of Minogue's Love Kylie hit lingerie label that launched in the UK in February 2003. Kylie nightwear will follow.

Selfridges, which won the right to launch Love Kylie exclusively, says it was the store's biggest-selling lingerie launch, with sales of more than 5,000 units in the first week. Sales in the UK have increased by 300 per cent over the past 12 months. With impeccable timing, Love Kylie Legs coincides with print and billboard advertisements for Showgirl and the launch of Minogue's greatest hits album in November. Minogue's fluffy image is at odds with the astute businesswoman who is the fifth richest woman in the UK music industry. Only Annie Lennox (pounds 35m); Victoria Beckham (pounds 65m); Sharon Osborne (pounds 100m) and Madonna (pounds 215m) exceed her wealth. The Beckham and Osborne fortunes are calculated with their husbands'.

Next year's tour, album and hosiery launch should see Minogue overtake Lennox and make her independent fortune second only to Madonna's. "In 2003 we estimated that, after tax, Kylie made pounds 7m touring, pounds 5m from singles sales, pounds 10m from album sales and another pounds 8m from merchandise and advertising", said Max Flint, presenter of "Kylie's Millions".

"I'd say she could get up to pounds 3m out of the Showgirl tour. She's not as greedy as Madonna charging pounds 60 for a programme (and pounds 150 a ticket). Kylie is not a world brand like Madonna. Her fan base is polarised in Australia and Europe. Her lingerie line is sound but it's not in the super-league of JLo's clothes and perfumes. She isn't ruthlessly ambitious. Kylie is a perfectly balanced superstar".

Keeping her brand in proportion makes Minogue a more trustworthy name than the global stars who over-license their brand. LK Legs' PR department insists: "Kylie has the final sign-off of every design" and her stylist co-designer William Baker says: "Kylie is the key ongoing inspiration behind the new styles and ranges."

At her launch, Minogue says "LK Legs has been quite some time in the making. William and I are involved throughout the design process". Her favourite silhouette is Foxy Fishnets, a hipster fishnet based in a style worn by many chorus girls and showgirls, presumably including a certain showgirl on her world tour.

All of Kylie's endorsements and investments are astute. Her company in Australia, KDB, is run by her (accountant) father Ron Minogue. He takes care of her property portfolio, which includes 21 rentals in Melbourne.

On 4 July, Melbourne's Herald Sun estimated Minogue's Australian property to be worth pounds 10m. Her endorsements are blue chip and include Eurostar, Pepsi, British Airways and Ford. Compared to Madonna, her career has been relatively risk-free and scandal-free. This makes her a marketing dream.

While Madonna's new incarnation as an author of children's books and designer of a spin-off clothing collection may jar with writhing on satin sheets in a gold conical bra with two hermaphrodites, Kylie selling saucy underwear is sexy and wholesome at the same time. Unlike JLo, Caprice and Elle McPherson, who also front lingerie lines, Minogue, who won the part of Charlene in the soap Neighbours at 17, does not intimidate women. She is sexy enough to appeal to men and camp enough to give a knowing wink to her vast gay audience.

William Baker says: "Love Kylie has become more of a brand and one that exists separately of Kylie the pop star". This is patently untrue. The lingerie labels Agent Provocateur and Myla could easily overwhelm a fledgling brand if it did not have the magic word`s Love Kylie on the packaging.