Sir Phillip Green exploring BHS sale

Arcadia, the textile empire of Sir Phillip Green, is exploring the sale of affordable apparel BHS. “We have had several approaches on BHS over the past few months. It is now in the company’s plan to explore whether any of these can be brought to a conclusion,” the company said.

A spokeswoman for Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia Group confirmed Sunday that the firm is in talks about selling its fashion and home high-street chain BHS.

As sources close to the company explain, Sir Philip Green has put BHS up for sale after various potential tenders showed interest in buying the department store chain.

According to the ‘Sunday Times’ over the weekend, the 180-store chain has recently attracted takeover attention from retailers including Primark, South African entrepreneur Christoffel Wiese and US hedge fund firm Apollo.

Green looking to divest from BHS since 2008

Green's interest in divesting from BHS is not new, as back to 2008, there were reports that Green planned to off-load the retailer, which he acquired from Storehouse in 2000 for 200 million pounds.

Last year, in November, he said he could be a “buyer or a seller” of high street chains as he unveiled a 3.4 percent fall in pretax profits at his Taveta Investments holding company, the group which also includes Topshop, Dorothy Perkins, Miss Selfridge, Wallis and Burton.

At the time Green said: “BHS remains challenging … with this sector of retail continuing to be very tough. There’s nothing wrong with the products it’s just getting people through the door.”

In the same vein, when Taveta Investments Ltd., Arcadia’s parent company, reported its full-year results in November, Green said BHS’ performance “remains challenging…with this sector of retail continuing to be very tough.”

As per BHS' latest filling with the UK’s Companies House, the retailer recorded a net loss of 55.3 million pounds in the year ended Aug. 31, 2013, narrowing from a net loss of 82.1 million, in the previous year. Sales for the period were 675.7 million pounds.