Luxury shoe designer Jimmy Choo explores £1-bn London IPO

Labelux GmbH, the German luxury-goods company and owner of brands including Bally shoes, is planning a £1 billion ($1.7 billion) float in London fpr its luxury shoe brand Jimmy Choo.

Labelux has held preliminary meetings with investment bankers in recent weeks to discuss an initial public offering of a minority stake, according to several media reports.

Founded by German billionaire Reimann family and part of the family's investment arm Joh A. Benckiser, Labelux would retain a majority stake in Jimmy Choo and use proceeds from the IPO to fund expansion.

Labelux acquired upscale shoemaker Jimmy Choo in 2011 for a reported £500 million ($811 million) from private equity firm TowerBrook Capital Partners. (See: Germany's Labelux buys upscale shoemaker Jimmy Choo for $811 million)

Jimmy Choo was founded in 1996 by London-based Malaysian fashion designer Jimmy Choo and Tamara Mellon, the accessories editor of Vogue magazine.

The brand became initially famous due to the patronage of celebrities like Princess Diana and later by the likes of Oprah Winfrey, US first lady Michelle Obama and others.

Choo sold his 50-per cent stake in the company for £10 million in 2001 to private equity firm Lion Capital, while Mellon continued to run the company as chief creative officer.

TowerBrook had acquired a controlling 83-per cent stake in Jimmy Choo in 2007 for £180 million, with Mellon owning the remaining 17 per cent.

Under TowerBrook, Jimmy Choo, whose shoes cost from £200 to more than £2,000, has grown from just being a women's luxury footwear brand to a range of other products like handbags, small leather goods, eyewear, scarves, belts, fragrance and men's shoes.

Sales have grown in every year of Jimmy Choo's existence and over the past four years have outperformed the overall luxury goods market by an average of five times. In 2010, the company reported net sales of £150 million and has more than 150 stores in 32 countries.

The size of the global luxury market was estimated to be worth €168 billion in 2010 and is expected to record compound annual growth of 6.2 per cent to reach €201 billion by 2013. The women's shoes and leather goods segment of the market, in which Jimmy Choo mainly operates, is expected to grow at a faster rate than the overall luxury market.

Labelux also owns perfume maker Coty Inc, a leading global beauty company with sales of over $4.6 billion last year, and a 16-per cent stake in London-listed Reckitt Benckiser, a global household health and personal care company with a market capitalisation of £34.8 billion.

Labelux's existing portfolio comprises of Swiss luxury brand Bally, acquired in 2008 from US-based investment firm Texas Pacific Group, New York-based apparel label Derek Lam, London-based jeweller Solange Azagury-Partridge and Italian accessories brand Zagliani.