Investors led by TowerBrook Capital Partners LLP are close to buying luxury shoe designer Jimmy Choo Ltd. for about stg£180 million sterling (€272 million), according to a source close to negotiations.
The glamorous high-heeled women's shoes grabbed attention when the lead character in the US TV series Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, declared her devotion to them.
London-based Jimmy Choo Ltd, which also produces accessories such as handbags, is 51 per cent owned by private equity firm Lion Capital LLP.
Lion bought a majority stake in Jimmy Choo in 2004 for £101 million. The company was launched in 1996 by Jimmy Choo, a couture shoe-maker based in the East End of London, and an accessories editor at Vogue UK, Tamara Mellon.
In 2001, Equinox Luxury Holdings Ltd bought Choo's share of the ready-to-wear business with Robert Bensoussan, Equinox's chief executive becoming chief executive.
In November 2006, Mr Choo told reporters at a design conference in Hong Kong that he no longer had anything to do with the ready-to-wear brand.
TowerBrook was spun off from financier George Soros' investment group in 2005. It was the buy-out arm of Soros Fund Management and was spun out as part of a Soros organisation effort to focus on its hedge fund roots.