(FORTUNE Magazine) – BAT Industries, through its U.S. subsidiary BATUS, plans to sell 40% of its U.S. retailing operations, including Gimbels, the troubled department store chain that once rivaled Macy's in New York. In addition to Gimbels, BAT will try to unload its Kohl's, Frederick & Nelson, and the Crescent department stores. As a result, the London-based company will take an after-tax charge of $175 million on 1985 earnings. The four units on the block had 1984 revenues of $1.4 billion, but didn't seem likely to grow. BAT will retain its more profitable retailers, which include Saks Fifth Avenue and Marshall Field's. European giants have often stumbled like innocents in American retailing. Korvettes closed down only three years after being bought by the French Agache-Willot Group. Hugo Mann, a West German retailer, closed its FedMart discount stores in California seven years after buying them. ''Foreigners like to buy cheap,'' says Terence McEvoy, a security analyst with Smith Barney, ''and you usually get what you pay for.'' $ But retailing is hard on just about everybody these days. ''The market is vastly overstored right now,'' says Robert Kerson of Walter K. Levy, the New York-based retailing consultants. ''There's also a major redundancy in merchandise. The only way that many stores are competing is in price, and that punishes the bottom line.'' The current climate might make it hard for BAT to sell its chains as complete packages. The 36 Gimbels stores, for example, may have to be sold separately. Macy's longtime neighbor on Herald Square may soon have another name.