Wickes urged the sale of blocks of small shares.

The Santa Monica-based retailing conglomerate announced a plan to encourage holders of fewer than 100 shares to sell them, with Wickes paying the brokerage fees. Wickes said it is underwriting the program in an effort to save $330,000 to $440,000 a year that it pays to service its 22,000 holders of odd lots of 99 shares or less. Those shareholders own about 1 million of the company’s total of 134 million shares. Information on the offer, which expires March 21, will be mailed out beginning Saturday.