Sir Philip Green is to sell the 185-store BHS chain.
The Arcadia group announced in November it would be reviewing its property portfolio following a 3% fall in annual profits on a turnover of £143m in the year to 30 August.
Arcadia, which also owns Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge, said the loss in sales last year was down to BHS, where losses had increased year-on-year from £19.3m to £21m.
Sir Philip bought BHS, formerly known as British Home Stores, from the Storehouse corporation for £200m in 2000.
He turned the business around and it was worth £1.2bn a year later.
Around 150 of the 185 BHS stores owned by Sir Philip have planning permission to sell food, potentially making them an attractive proposition for food retailers.
Jonathon De Mello, head of retail consultancy at Harper Dennis Hobbs, said: “BHS’s property portfolio could be the most valuable part of the business, given that Sir Philip owns the freehold on a number of his stores. Most of the stores are large and very prime units that could either be sold to international retailers/department stores in their own right, or broken up into smaller, valuable units where a potential buyer could build a small shopping area in a prime space.”
