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Francois-Henri Pinault is finally ready to end his fling with plus-size fashions.
The French billionaire jet-setter — whose luxury conglomerate PPR failed to unload its troubled Redcats catalog unit last year — is close to selling the profitable US division of Redcats, The Post has learned.
Redcats USA owns a stable of plus-size clothing catalogs and websites called OneStopPlus, which form the bulk of its business, sources told The Post.
Likewise, insiders said Pinault has hung a “for sale” sign on Redcats USA’s other key holding, the online catalog Sportsman’s Guide. In addition to selling sporting goods, guns and outdoor gear, Sportsman’s Guide operates the Golf Warehouse catalog.
Critics for years have pooh-poohed PPR’s ownership of Redcats. The downmarket direct seller has made an unsexy bedmate for PPR’s Gucci Group, whose glamorous luxe brands include Bottega Veneta, Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen.
Pinault — who this summer cut a child-support pact with former girlfriend, supermodel Linda Evangelista, even as he remains married to movie star Salma Hayek — tried to unload all of Redcats last year for as much as $1.5 billion.
But that auction flopped, mainly because of lukewarm interest in Redcats’ struggling French-based La Redoute catalog (which accounts for the “R” in PPR, an acronym for Pinault-Printemps-Redoute).
Sources said OneStopPlus — an umbrella for a half-dozen plus-size retail brands — generates upwards of $75 million in Ebitda, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
Sources said OneStopPlus could fetch between $400 million and $500 million as an auction nears a final round of bidding in the coming weeks.
Insiders said Sportsman’s Guide and Golf Warehouse together generate about $30 million in Ebitda. They are expected to sell for less than half the amount that OneStopPlus should bring in — despite the fact that PPR shelled out $265 million for them in 2006.
Private-equity firms including TPG, Leonard Green, Berkshire Partners and CCMP are potential bidders, sources said.
New York investment bank Peter J. Solomon has been hired to help supervise the US auction for PPR, which last year hired Rothschilds to sell all of Redcats.
“There is no further information to share at this time,” Karen Davis, a spokeswoman for Redcats USA, said, declining to confirm the negotiations.
OneStopPlus — whose websites and catalogs include Jessica London, Woman Within, Roaman’s, Brylane Home and KingSize — keeps a low profile on Seventh Avenue.
Nevertheless, retail insiders said they’ve got loyal customers across America’s Big Middle.
In February, confirming an earlier exclusive report in The Post on the pending deal, Redcats sold Avenue, a New Jersey-based plus-size clothing chain, to private-equity firm Versa Capital after the chain went bankrupt.
Versa, a Philadelphia-based private-equity firm, said it will slim Avenue to about 300 stores from 433.