Sale: 33% Off at Brooks Brothers

Marks & Spencer, the troubled British retailer, will be examining bids beginning today for its New York-based Brooks Brothers apparel chain. It bought the menswear company in 1988 from Allied Stores for $750 million, and indicates a willingness to settle for two-thirds of its investment, or $500 million. Industry insiders have said the price is likely to be closer to $400 million.

Among the announced bidders are May Department Stores (St. Louis-based owner of Lord & Taylor, Foley's, Filene's, Hecht's, Strawbridge's, Robinsons-May, Famous-Barr, L.S. Ayres, Meier & Frank, The Jones Store, and Kaufmann's); Men's Wearhouse; the Della Valle Group, which has a franchise agreement for Brooks Brothers in Italy; Luxottica (the eyeglass and sunglass retailer that makes eyewear for the Brooks Brothers brand); the Texas Pacific Group (a buyout firm that owns J. Crew and Bally); and Dickson Concepts International (which operates Brooks Brothers franchises in Southeast Asia).

One rumor suggests May Co. as the leading contender, with plans to cross-merchandise the Brooks Brothers brand as private-label merchandise in its own 425-plus stores while keeping the 220 existing Brooks Brothers stores open. It's a move similar to the strategy Nordstrom used when it purchased its Facconable supplier last year.

Brooks Brothers was started on the corner of Catherine and Cherry streets in lower Manhattan in 1818. It remained a New York family-owned operation until 1946, when it was purchased and taken nationwide by Washington-based Garfinkel-Rhoads. Both Garfinkel and Brooks Brothers were swallowed up by Allied Stores in 1980.

Marks & Spencer, cursed by the unprofitability of rapid and unwieldy international expansion, will be abandoning not only the U.S. (where it owns Brooks Brothers and Kings Supermarkets in New Jersey) but also retail operations in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain. Its core business is the 300 or so Marks & Spencer stores in the U.K. selling mid-priced clothing, food and household items. It is the U.K.'s largest seller of clothing.