SB Capital Group, Tiger Capital Group and Great American Group announced the formation of a joint venture to conduct a sale of all inventory in the 568 stores of women’s retailer Fashion Bug, a unit of Charming Shoppes, a recently acquired subsidiary of Ascena Retail Group.

The “Total Inventory Blowout Sale” will be conducted in the 568 Fashion Bug stores located in communities across 39 states, and is part of Ascena’s planned divestiture of the brand and the orderly wind down of the Fashion Bug operation.

The sale includes about $500 million in inventory.

Fashion Bug offers women’s apparel in plus, misses and juniors sizes, and includes offerings of intimate apparel, accessories, and footwear. Founded as part of Charming Shoppes, the first Fashion Bug store was opened in the 1960s in Audubon, New Jersey. The company grew with rapid expansion in the late 1970s, and reached a peak of more than 1,400 stores in the 1990s.

As part of the process, Fashion Bug has retained more than 5,900 store and district personnel to assist the joint venture in operating the stores through the completion of the sale process.

SB Capital Group, a Schottenstein affiliate, is a provider in the field of asset recovery, rescue finance, restructuring and strategic store closing events.

Tiger Group provides advisory, restructuring, valuation, disposition and auction services within a broad range of retail, wholesale, and industrial sectors.

Great American Group is a provider of asset disposition and auction solutions, advisory and valuation services, capital investment and real estate advisory services for an extensive array of companies.