Saks Embraces Lower Manhattan

Saks is expected to announce that it will open a four-floor, 85,000-square-foot store to anchor Brookfield Place. By JULIE SATOW September 24, 2014

Saks Fifth Avenue will announce on Wednesday that it is making a major commitment to Lower Manhattan by opening a new Saks Fifth Avenue department store, opening Manhattan's first Off 5th outlet store, and moving its United States headquarters to the heart of New York's financial district.

The move, which is being done with tax incentives from the city and state, is the latest sign of revitalization efforts downtown. Saks is expected to announce that it will open a four-floor, 85,000-square-foot store to anchor Brookfield Place, an enormous office and retail complex in Battery Park City across from the World Trade Center. The store will be its second location in Manhattan, aside from its flagship store on Fifth Avenue.

In addition, the Hudson's Bay Company, the parent company that owns Saks Fifth Avenue, will consolidate into 400,000 square feet at Brookfield Place. The public company currently leases about 550,000 square feet across eight locations in Manhattan, and will move into its new headquarters sometime in mid- to late 2016.

As part of the deal, the retailer will also open its first Off 5th outlet store in Manhattan, with 55,000 square feet at One Liberty Plaza. The site, which fronts Church Street and is across from the discount retailer Century 21, is currently occupied by Brooks Brothers.

In return for choosing Brookfield Place, Hudson's Bay Company will receive $3 million in Excelsior Jobs Program tax credits from New York State's Empire State Development. That money will be tied directly to the relocation of 1,850 existing jobs downtown, as well as the creation of up to 800 new jobs over five years. The company will also receive $9 million through the federally funded Job Creation and Retention Program, a grant offered jointly by the state and the New York City Economic Development Corporation.

As a result of the office lease, Brookfield Place, formerly called the World Financial Center, which consists of 8.5 million square feet spread across five buildings, is now 95 percent leased.

The deal, which took about six months to negotiate, almost did not come to fruition. Hudson's Bay Company was originally in the market for new office space and was not looking at Lower Manhattan, but was considering New Jersey and Connecticut. It also did not originally intend to open a second Saks Fifth Avenue location in Manhattan.

"We were in the middle of pursuing a regional search for office space, and as part of that, an associate insisted to me that Brookfield Place would be a fantastic location," said Richard Baker, governor and chief executive of Hudson's Bay Company. "I wasn't up to date on the changes downtown and I thought it was not a likely location and was not on the top of my list of sites to go visit." After some persuasion, Mr. Baker drove to Brookfield Place, "and once I saw the vibrancy of the local population, the tourist community and the existing and growing office tenants, it became a very logical choice."

Hudson's Bay Company, which is based in Canada, will be leasing 233,000 square feet at 225 Liberty Street and 166,000 square feet at 250 Vesey Street, with leases that run for approximately 20 years. As for its location downtown, far from its flagship Saks Fifth Avenue department store on Fifth Avenue, Mr. Baker said it was a combination of finding affordable space that was also convenient for employees.

"When we analyzed the opportunity at Brookfield Place, it has a lot of characteristics of Boston, and we have a store in Boston that does very well," Mr. Baker said. The new department store will include nearly 12,000 square feet in the basement; 26,000 square feet on the ground level; 29,500 square feet on the second floor and nearly 19,000 square feet on the third floor.

The Off 5th outlet location may not open for several years because Brooks Brothers, which currently occupies the space, has a lease that runs through 2017. Despite this delay, Mr. Baker said he wanted to lock in the space because "it is the single best location in North America for off-price retail."

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Advertising: 1t’s a Bird! 1t’s a Plane! 1t’s CW’s New Season

September 23, 2014

Advertising

By STUART ELLIOTT

A TELEVISION network with modest ratings is hoping that audiences are holding out for a hero or, better yet for network executives, scads of them.

The network, CW, is beginning to promote its new shows and returning series for the 2014-15 season, which starts this week. CW will begin presenting its fare Oct. 2, following a strategy to step back while its bigger broadcast competitors — ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC — introduce their programming first.

CW is using a new theme to promote its coming season, "Heroes within," which will be the centerpiece of a campaign that includes, in addition to television commercials, radio spots; online ads; ads in magazines, movie theaters and transit systems; billboards; and social media like Facebook and Twitter. CW's marketing department is working with Troika, a brand consultant firm and creative agency in Los Angeles that specializes in assignments for entertainment clients that also include ABC, CBS Sports, CNN, HBO, Hulu and PBS.

The theme is meant to "refocus the CW brand around its current programming," said Dan Pappalardo, chief executive of Troika, and appeal to people who, according to Troika's research, prefer certain types of viewing experiences — for instance, shows with morality that is more gray than black-and-white and themes that are more supernatural than realistic.

CW is using a theme of  "Heroes within" to promote its coming season. The campaign includes TV commercials, radio spots and social media.

Several CW series seem tailored for those preferences: returning hits like "Arrow," "The Originals," "Supernatural" and "The Vampire Diaries," and newcomers for the fall and midseason like "The Flash," a spinoff of "Arrow"; "iZombie," based on a comic book; and "Jane the Virgin," a comedic drama inspired by a Venezuelan telenovela.

A 60-second commercial fleshes out the theme. Words on the screen, superimposed over scenes from CW shows, declare: "Within each of us is the power to be more than we are, to be strong, to be wise, to be passionate, to be brave, to become something legendary. This is your moment. Rise to the challenge. Heroes within."

The goal, said Rick Haskins, executive vice president for marketing and digital content at CW, which is owned by CBS and Time Warner, is to express "a feeling of optimism" and the idea that "you really can reach inside yourself and find the hero within." Those concepts resonate with the CW's target audience, primarily ages 18 to 34, who "feel like they want to change the world," he added.

Susan Kresnicka, an anthropologist who joined Troika in June to lead its new research and insights group, said the agency's research included "a good bit of social listening and observing online conversations" about television.

"The heroism we identified wasn't about a simplistic hero but about a complex hero, about antiheroes who struggle but come to do the right thing, about perseverance," she added.

During the upfront week in May, CW announced a schedule for 2014-15 that sought to build on the success of shows like "Arrow" and "The Vampire Diaries." The new fall series, "The Flash" and "Jane the Virgin," are being singled out by critics as among the most promising of any on the five networks — surprising for CW, whose shows rarely draw such praise. In fact, both series have already received orders for three additional scripts each, a rarity before a season starts.

"Keeping in mind that it has only two new series this fall, CW has also turned out two of the best with 'The Flash' and 'Jane the Virgin,' " said Ed Martin, television and video critic for MediaBizBloggers. "Not since the premiere of 'Arrow' three years ago has a new series on CW been at the forefront of fall season coverage."

Still, CW faces intense competition in appealing to viewers seeking heroic fare. Other shows fitting that bill include "
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Pulse of the People: Americans are 0.K. with Big Business. 1t’s Business Lobbying Power They Hate.

Pulse of the People By NEIL IRWIN September 23, 2014

How do Americans really feel about corporate America? Are businesses, in our collective psyche, the drivers of wealth, innovation and jobs? Or a profit-sucking engine of greed and exploitation?

The answer: Yes.

A new survey fills in more of the details of Americans' nuanced picture of the corporate sector — and in particular how those views of business in the United States compare with the rest of the world.

There's a lot to parse in the survey, from the business network CNBC and the public relations firm Burson-Marsteller. Over the summer, they surveyed about 25,000 people in 25 nations, including both developed and emerging economies, to understand their views about big business, the relationship between business and government, and more. (The full Corporate Perception Indicator survey is here.)

When you look at the finer details, it appears that in gauging whether Americans (and residents of other countries) view business positively or negatively, it matters a great deal what, precisely, you ask.

For example, when asked whether corporations have too much, too little or just the right amount of influence over our economic future, 48 percent of Americans chose "too much." That's roughly in the middle of 24 percent in China and 63 percent in Brazil.

Graphic | Countries Differ on Whether Corporations Are Too PowerfulA chart comparing people's views of corporations across various nations.

But interestingly, you get very different results with a similar question phrased in a more theoretical way. Is it a good thing or bad thing for corporations to be strong and influential? Only 31 percent of Americans answered that it is a good thing, among the lowest of the countries surveyed and far below the 60 and 70 percent levels in some emerging countries.

Graphic | Most Americans Are Skeptical of Corporate InfluenceA chart comparing the views of people in various nations about the power of corporations.

Similarly, Americans are more likely than respondents in any country surveyed except Italy to believe that corporate lobbyists exercise a high degree of influence over the national government, with 59 percent of American survey respondents saying that corporate lobbyists have "a lot of influence" over policy.

Let me try to make sense of these results, which would seem on their face to be contradictory:

When it comes to business exerting power over the economy, Americans have mixed views but are generally comfortable. But when it comes to business exerting power over government, they are much more exercised.

Americans aren't antibusiness, in other words. They're just against business having what they see as too much power in Washington.

Compare that with China, where citizens seem to view businesses as less powerful in terms of lobbying (only 19 percent seeing a lot of influence by corporate lobbyists, a full 40 percentage points lower than in the United States) but are more likely to believe it is good for companies to be strong and influential. One might imagine that Chinese citizens see less a phenomenon in which business overly influences government and one more in which government overly influences businesses.

Indeed, a remarkable pattern stands out. In some of the places where big business has the least power and capitalist economies are the least developed, optimism and support for the corporate sector is highest.

In Communist Party-led China, 74 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that "it is a good thing when corporations are strong and influential, because they are engines of innovation and economic growth." That is around three times the level of support found in capitalist paradises like Britain, the United States and Australia.

Perhaps we all want what we don't have.

Graphic | Fear vs. HopeA chart comparing hope about vs. fear of corporations in various nations.

And when asked whether they view the role of corporations in the future as a reason for hope or for fear, some of the highest levels of fear were in the United States and other prosperous Western nations. The highest levels of hope in the corporate sector were in the emerging Asian economies of Indonesia, China, Malaysia and India.

In other words, the less developed a corporate sector is in a given country, the more hopeful its people are that it will be a force for the better.

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Economic Scene: The Hidden Benefits of Mitigating Climate Change

September 23, 2014

Eduardo Porter

ECONOMIC SCENE

On Tuesday, more than 100 world leaders gathered at the United Nations to open a climate summit that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon hopes will ultimately lead to a global environmental agreement to be signed in Paris next year.

You're forgiven if you hold your applause. World leaders have been trying without success to cut such a deal for almost two decades, crashing time and again into the fear that slowing the emissions of carbon that are inexorably changing the climate carries an economic cost that few are willing to bear.

This time, though, advocates come armed with a trump card: All things considered, the cost of curbing carbon emissions may be considerably cheaper than earlier estimates had suggested. For all the fears that climate change mitigation would put the brakes on growth, it might actually enhance it.

Whether this can tip the balance toward the global grand bargain that has eluded world leaders so many times depends on a couple of things. The first is to what extent it is true. The second is whether this is, in fact, the issue that matters most to the people making the decisions.

The most recent salvo came in "The New Climate Economy," a report issued last week by an international commission appointed by a handful of rich and poor countries to take a new look at the economics of climate change.

"There is now huge scope for action which can both enhance growth and reduce climate risk," it reads. Efficient investments could deliver at least half of the emission cuts needed by 2030 to keep global temperatures in check. And they could do so while delivering extra economic gains on the side.

At first blush, the proposition that replacing fossil fuel with more expensive energy could produce a net economic gain seems implausible. Until now, even many supporters of tough action accepted the idea that there would be a necessary price to pay initially to achieve the long-term goal of avoiding catastrophic climate change.

But the new thinking turns that on its head by taking more careful account of the hidden benefits of mitigating climate change.

"The cost of action is well known," said Helen Mountford, director of economics at the World Resources Institute, which worked on the "New Climate Economy" report. "The co-benefits, like reduced health costs, are less known."

The findings are not isolated. Research published this month by Ian Parry and Chandara Veung of the International Monetary Fund and Dirk Heine of the University of Bologna concluded that almost every one of the top 20 carbon emitters would reap economic gains by imposing a hefty carbon tax, if they deployed the revenue to reduce taxes on income.

A tax of $63 per ton of CO2, for instance, would not only cut China's emissions by some 17 percent, it would also cut the number of Chinese sickened or killed by pollution from coal. If Beijing used the money to cut other taxes, it would increase economic efficiency, adding up to a net economic gain – on top of any climate impact — of more than 1 percent of China's gross domestic product.

This finding does not depend on any technological breakthroughs. It happens whether solar energy is cheap or expensive.

"It's only recently that policy makers are beginning to appreciate the power of fiscal instruments like environmental taxes," Mr. Parry told me. "And it's only fairly recently that we've been able to value the health and other environment impacts so we've only recently got some sense of the substantial and pervasive undercharging for environmental damages."

While this is all theory, some empirical research also supports the finding.

In 2008, for instance, the Canadian province of British Columbia unilaterally imposed a carbon tax that rose from 10 Canadian dollars per ton of CO2 in 2010 to 30 dollars in 2012, using the money to reduce personal and corporate income taxes.

An assessment of the experience published last year by economists at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that fuel use declined, but economic growth remained on the same trajectory as the rest of Canada's. Notably, British Columbia ended up with the lowest income tax in the country.

Could this new understanding change the debate over climate change?

At the very least, the belief that there is a climate-related free lunch out there might provide welcome harmony to negotiations that usually end in acrimonious finger-pointing. The new research might even help move the debate away from the failed strategy of seeking legally binding emissions targets on every country, providing a blueprint for countries to voluntarily take on ambitious goals because it is in their own self-interest regardless of what other nations do.

Not everybody buys the math, though. And even those who do acknowledge that these efficient pathways to a low-carbon future are very narrow indeed.

For even if every country reaped net benefits from embracing a low-carbon development path, governments still must allocate costs and benefits within individual economies, mediating between winners and losers.

"Health is a social benefit that is not included in the accounts of private investors," noted Zou Ji, deputy director of China's National Center for Climate Change Strategy, a research institute affiliated with the government's National Development and Reform Commission. "But abatement costs will be felt by private investors."

Navigating these distributional issues will be tricky. Getting it wrong can be expensive. For instance, Mr. Parry and his co-researchers found that if carbon revenue was not used to reduce other income taxes, the net gain from a carbon tax evaporated and became a net cost.

Germany — perhaps the country most committed to developing an economy powered with renewable energy — has struggled with the trade-offs. First it exempted its export-oriented, energy-intensive industries from the surcharges levied to pay for subsidies to solar and wind generators. More recently, alarmed at the rising cost of power, it has begun reducing its subsidies for renewables, which has led to a drop in the rollout of solar power.

So maybe it's no surprise that few countries have been willing, at least so far, to commit to take the promised high growth/low carbon path.

Last July, Australia's newly installed conservative government repealed the carbon tax introducted by the Labor government before it, and the country's carbon emissions quickly shot up.

"If the Chinese and the Indians found it much more economically efficient to build out solar, nuclear and wind, why are they still building all these coal plants?" asked Ted Nordhaus," chairman of the Breakthrough Institute, a think tank focused on development and the environment.

China's CO2 emissions increased 4.2 percent last year, according to the Global Carbon Project, helping drive a global increase of 2.3 percent. China now accounts for 28 percent of the world's total emissions, more than the United States and the European Union combined.

"I don't think the Chinese and the Indians are stupid," Mr. Nordhaus told me. "They are looking at their indigenous energy resources and energy demand and making fairly reasonable decisions."

For them, combating climate change does not look at all like a free lunch.

Email: eporter@nytimes.com; Twitter: @portereduardo

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DealBook: German Prosecutors Charge Deutsche Bank Executives

Photo Jürgen Fitschen, the co-chief executive of Deutsche Bank​.Credit Ralph Orlowski/Reuters

​FRANKFURT — German prosecutors filed criminal charges on Tuesday against the co-chief executive of Deutsche Bank​, Jürgen Fitschen, ​and several former bank leaders, accusing them of colluding to give false testimony in a long-running lawsuit over the collapse of a bank client's media empire​.

​The prosecutors continued to investigate the executives after the bank in February settled more than a decade of litigation with the family of Leo Kirch over the downfall of the Kirch Group and its subsidiaries. Mr. Kirch ​had ​sued the bank after an appearance by Rolf E. Breuer, the bank's former chief executive, on Bloomberg Television in February 2002, in which he commented on the media company's creditworthiness.

The Munich prosecutor's office filed charges of attempted trial fraud against​ Mr. Fitschen, the ​current ​co-​chief executive, as well as Mr. Breuer and Josef Ackermann​, who was also a chief executive of the bank. Charges were also filed against Clemens Börsig, former supervisory board chairman of the bank, and Tessen von Heydebreck, a former member of the management board.

​The charges, which must be approved by a court to go forward, add to the already formidable list of legal problems that have damaged Deutsche Bank's reputation and led to billions of euros in litigation costs. Among the most serious cases, bank employees are suspected of manipulating foreign currency markets and benchmark interest rates.

Deutsche Bank, Germany's largest lender, said in a statement that the charge against Mr. Fitschen was unfounded, but declined to comment further or to say whether he would remain in his post. Mr. Fitschen shares chief executive duties with Anshu Jain, who was not named in the case.

The bank had previously disclosed that Mr. Fitschen was the target of an investigation in relation to the Kirch case.

Mr. Fitschen is not the first Deutsche Bank chief executive to face criminal charges while in office. His predecessor, Mr. Ackermann, was tried on accusations that he was involved in awarding illegal bonuses to managers of Mannesmann, a German cell phone service provider, after its takeover by Vodafone of Britain in 2000.

The charges were dismissed in 2006 after Mr. Ackermann agreed to pay 3.2 million euros, or about $4.2 million, of his own money. Mr. Ackermann continued to lead the bank during legal proceedings in the Mannesmann case.

But the charges against Mr. Fitschen are an embarrassment when the bank is in the midst of what it has billed as a sweeping campaign to instill a stronger sense of ethics among bank employees and avoid the problems of the past.

Lawyers for Mr. Ackermann, who served as chief executive of Deutsche Bank for a decade until 2012, and Mr. Breuer, who was Mr. Ackermann's predecessor, did not respond immediately to requests for comment. Lawyers for Mr. Börsig and for Mr. von Heydebreck could not be reached.

Deutsche Bank shares fell about 1 percent in Frankfurt trading Tuesday.

The charges, which had been rumored in the German news media for weeks, stem from the lawsuit filed against the bank by Mr. Kirch, a media mogul who blamed Deutsche Bank for the collapse of his Munich-based television and film rights empire.

Legal proceedings continued past Mr. Kirch's death in 2011, concluding only after Deutsche Bank agreed in February of this year to pay €775 million in a settlement. The bank also agreed to pay interest and costs.

In a statement on Tuesday, Munich prosecutors said that the accused men had colluded to make false statements before the Munich court that was hearing the Kirch lawsuits. After judges in the case said in 2011 that they believed Mr. Breuer had not told them the truth, according to prosecutors, the other accused men offered testimony intended to bolster Mr. Breuer's version of events.

The prosecutors did not specify what statements Mr. Breuer made, but according to the German news media, they concerned the accusation by Mr. Kirch that Deutsche Bank wanted to put pressure on the media company in order to earn fees if it were sold.

In Mr. Fitschen's case, according to prosecutors, he gave testimony intended to support Mr. Breuer while also avoiding statements that could be proven false. In addition, after bank documents came to light contradicting previous testimony, prosecutors claim, Mr. Fitschen and Mr. Ackermann did not try to correct the record.

If convicted, the men could face prison sentences of six months to 10 years. Mr. Börsig and Mr. von Heydebreck face additional charges of making false statements under oath, which carries a possible sentence of three months to five years.

Because a court must approve the charges for them to go forward, the defendants will have an opportunity to argue for the charges to be dropped. None of the defendants would face pretrial detention unless a judge ruled that they might flee or commit further crimes, such as tampering with witnesses or evidence.

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DealBook: Jimmy Choo, Luxury Shoe Brand, to List Shares in London

Photo Founded in London in 1996, the company has about 170 stores in 34 countries.Credit

LONDON — The luxury shoe company Jimmy Choo, which shot to fame on the feet of the stars of "Sex in the City," said on Tuesday that it planned to pursue an initial public offering later this year in London.

The British shoe brand is expected to sell at least a 25 percent stake of its new holding company, Jimmy Choo Limited, in an offering that could value the company at about 700 million pounds, or about $1.1 billion. The listing is expected in October.

Jimmy Choo would become the first publicly traded, stand-alone luxury footwear brand, and the announcement is sure to send reverberations through the fashion world and Wall Street.

It is final proof, if any were needed after the current round of fashion shows in New York, London and Milan, that the age of the "it" bag is over, and the era of the shoe is well underway.​

The shoe segment is made up of low-hanging fruit for the deal world: small-to-medium-sized independent names, most still owned by the individual or family who founded them, like Manolo Blahnik, Christian Louboutin, Giuseppe Zanotti, Rene Caovilla, Casadei and Santoni.

​Last year LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the French luxury giant, bought British shoe brand Nicholas Kirkwood, LVMH's first-ever stand-alone shoe brand, as if in acknowledgement of the trend. Its rival Kering owns Sergio Rossi.

Jimmy Choo stands out for its canny product mix that balances out-there stilettos, platforms and other statement-making shoes with a basics line entitled 24 Hours. Prices range from $525 for flat shoes to $1,595 for high boots on Net-a-Porter, the online luxury retailer.

It also sells a range of accessories under its brand name, including handbags, belts and fragrances, as well as men's shoes.

The company directly competes with other high-end women's shoemakers, most notably Christian Louboutin, whose shoes are known for their distinctive red sole.

The brand was founded in 1996 by the shoemaker Jimmy Choo, who was making bespoke shoes in London's East End, and Tamara Mellon, Vogue's former accessories director. Mr. Choo's niece Sandra Choi joined the company as creative director.

Mr. Choo and Ms. Mellon have left the company, but Ms. Choi remains as creative director.

The company expanded to the United States with a boutique in New York City in 1998 and now has about 170 stores in 34 countries.

"Jimmy Choo is a clear success story with strong momentum, and I am confident that our future as a public company can only extend our reputation and position in this attractive sector," Pierre Denis, the Jimmy Choo chief executive, said in a news release.

The offering is expected to include a partial sale of the holdings of Joh. A. Benckiser's JAB Luxury arm, which owns the brand.

The company posted sales of £281.5 million in 2013 and plans to open 10 to 15 stores a year as part of its growth strategy. The company posted adjusted net income of £21 million last year.

China is expected to be an important growth market for the company, Mr. Denis said in an interview.

The company, which had nine stores in Asia at the end of 2013, expects to open five stores a year in China over the next five years, Mr. Denis said. Triple-digit sales growth in China has been driven in part by the brand's appearance on television shows, including the Korean serial "Love from the Star."

In a report last year, the consulting firm Bain & Company said that Chinese buyers were on their way to accounting for about a third of all luxury good purchases worldwide.

Jimmy Choo said that luxury shoes remain "one of the fastest growing segments in the wider luxury market" and represent an entry point for many buyers of luxury goods. Luxury shoe makers also have benefited from an increased demand for luxury shoes by retailers, namely higher-end department stores, and an increasing market for men's shoes, Jimmy Choo said.

Jimmy Choo expects online sales also to be a driver for its business in the medium term.

For the first half of 2014, Jimmy Choo said that its revenue rose 9.4 percent to £150.2 million, excluding the impact of currency changes.

The listing speaks to both the rising popularity of accessories among luxury consumers, and the increasing strength of the footwear market compared with other apparel segments.

In the last few years, department stores have devoted a significant portion of their shop floors to their shoe sections, such as a 63,000 square-foot area at Macy's in New York, 42,000 square feet at Harrods in London, and 30,000 square feet at Lane Crawford in Hong Kong.

Two years ago, Federico Marchetti, the founder and chief executive of the e-tailer Yoox, started an online shoes-only store called Shoescribe, in part, he said, because after tracking sales of footwear on Yoox he had discovered that shoes were his best-selling category by a long way. They made up almost a quarter of his sales. Many of the shoe-buying consumers were purchasing only shoes, and they exhibited highly recidivist behavior. Today, he says, the business is experiencing triple-digit growth.

An Oscar night staple, Jimmy Choo is popular among both the Hollywood elite, who love it for its red carpet appeal, and women such as Michelle Obama, who favor its less towering heels.

It has been popular on television and in movies, featuring in "Sex in the City" and "The Devil Wears Prada."

Jimmy Choo has passed through the hands of several private equity owners over the years.

The company was first acquired by Phoenix Equity Partners, which later invested in the shoe brand L.K. Bennett, in 2001 and then was passed on to Lion Capital in 2004. Ms. Mellon and TowerBrook Capital Partners took control in 2007.

The company was sold in 2011 to Labelux, a luxury goods company founded by the Reimann family, which owns Joh. A. Benckiser. Earlier this year, Joh. A. Benckiser restructured its luxury arm, putting the Jimmy Choo and Belstaff brands under its direct control.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch and HSBC are acting as underwriters on the offering.

Vanessa Friedman reported from Milan.

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DealBook: Luxury Shoe Brand Jimmy Choo to List Shares in London

LONDON — The luxury shoe company Jimmy Choo said on Tuesday that it planned to pursue an initial public offering of its shares later this year in London.

The British shoe brand is expected to sell at least 25 percent of the capital of its new holding company, Jimmy Choo Limited, in an offering that could value the company at about 700 million pounds, or about $1.1 billion. The listing is expected in October.

"Jimmy Choo is a clear success story with strong momentum, and I am confident that our future as a public company can only extend our reputation and position in this attractive sector," Pierre Denis, the Jimmy Choo chief executive, said in a news release.

The offering is expected to include a partial sale of the holdings of Joh A. Benckiser's JAB Luxury arm, which owns the brand.

The company posted sales of 281.5 million pounds, or about $459.9 million, in 2013 and plans to open 10 to 15 stores a year as part of its growth strategy. The company posted adjusted net income of £21 million last year.

The listing speaks to both the rising popularity of accessories among luxury consumers, and the increasing strength of the footwear market vis-a-vis other apparel segments.

In the last few years shoe floors in department stores everywhere have gone on a steroid-fueled diet, from Macy's 63,000 square feet in New York, to Harrod's 42,000 in London, by way of Lane Crawford in Hong Kong (30,000 square feet) and the Level Shoe District in Dubai, a 96,000-square-foot extravaganza of high-end shoes.

Two years ago Federico Marchetti, the founder and chief executive of the e-tailer Yoox, started an online shoe-only store called Shoescribe, in part, he said, because after tracking sales of footwear on Yoox he had discovered that shoes were his best-selling category by a long shot. They made up almost a quarter of his sales. Many of the shoe-buying consumers were buying only shoes, and that they exhibited highly recidivist behavior. Today, he says, the business is experiencing triple-digit growth.

An Oscar night staple, Jimmy Choo is popular among both the Hollywood elite, who love it for its red carpet appeal, and women such as Michelle Obama, who favor its lower height heels.

The brand was founded in 1996 by the shoemaker Jimmy Choo, who was making bespoke shoes in London's East End, and Tamara Mellon, Vogue's former accessories director. Mr. Choo's niece Sandra Choi joined the company as creative director.

Mr. Choo and Ms. Mellon have left the company, but Ms. Choi remains as creative director.

The brand opened its first store in London in 1996 and expanded to the United States two years later. The company has about 170 stores in 34 countries.

It has been popular on television and in movies, featuring in "Sex in the City" and "The Devil Wears Prada."

Jimmy Choo has passed through several private equity owners over the years.

The company was first acquired by Phoenix Equity Partners, which later invested in shoe brand LK Bennett, in 2001 and then passed to Lion Capital in 2004. Ms. Mellon and Towerbrook Capital Partners took control of the control in 2007.

The company was sold in 2011 to Labelux, a luxury goods company founded by the Reimann family, which owns Joh A. Benckiser. Earlier this year, Joh A. Benckiser restructured its luxury arm, putting the Jimmy Choo and Belstaff brands under its direct control.

Merrill Lynch and HSBC are acting as underwriters on the offering.

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