Jimmy Choo A/W collection 2010

(Reuters) - Private equity funds TowerBrook Capital and Gala Capital are studying the possibility of an intital public offering for British-based shoe designer Jimmy Choo, Spanish newspaper Expansion reported on Tuesday.

Gala Capital and TowerBrook own a majority stake in the upscale shoe designer, favoured by celebrities like Charlize Theron and Julia Roberts.

The IPO could value the firm at around 500 million pounds ($768 million), Expansion quoted financial sources as saying.

The private equity firms were also studying the sale of the shoe designer, which shod U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama on Inauguration Day, to a luxury goods company or another private equity group, the financial sources told the paper.

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are in the frontrunning to advise on the possible listing of the company, founded by former Vogue magazine editor Tamara Mellon, the paper said.

Neither Gala Capital nor TowerBrook was available to comment.

A group led by TowerBrook Capital bought Jimmy Choo in February 2007 at a value of 185 million pounds, the third time the group had been sold in six years.

(Reporting by Sonya Dowsett; Editing by Dan Lalor) ($1 = 0.6511 pound)