Geneen wants to buy W. R. Grace’s retail unit.

Harold Geneen, the former chairman of ITT, plans to mount a $700-million bid to buy W. R. Grace & Co.’s 660-store retail empire, which was put on the block last December, according to the March 10 issue of National Home Center News. “We know Geneen is planning to make an offer because we have talked to him,” a Grace executive said in an interview with the biweekly trade paper, which covers the retail home improvement industry. The Grace division operates 307 home center stores under the Channel, Handy Dan, Handy City and Ole’s names, among others.