US supermarket giant has announced a cut-price deal to sell off menswear brand Bonobos to Express Inc and WHP Global.

The $75 million sale is significantly lower than the $310 million fee Walmart paid for Bonobos in June 2017.

WHP Global, which owns Toys “R” Us and acquired a 7.4 per cent stake in Express earlier this year, will pay $50 million for the Bonobos brand. Express meanwhile will acquire the operating assets and assume related liabilities of the Bonobos business for the remaining $25 million.

The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of the year, after which point WHP and Express will enter into an exclusive licence agreement which gives Express the right to use the IP acquired by WHP to run the Bonobos business.

Walmart acquired Bonobos at a time when it was attempting to build a portfolio of upmarket online brands to attract younger customers. However, the US’s largest private employer struggled to make the brand profitable and cut dozens of staff in 2019.

The company more recently has focused on developing alternative revenue streams including advertising and delivery. This mentality was cemented by Walmart chief exec Doug MicMillon who, at an investor meeting last week, said: "We're now in a phase that is less about scaling... eCommerce assortment... and more about execution and operating margin improvement.”

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