L.A. Group Reportedly the Winning Bidder for Thrifty : Investment: Pacific Enterprises is expected to sell its drug and sporting goods chains to Leonard Green & Partners.

Pacific Enterprises is reportedly very near striking a deal to sell its Thrifty Corp. subsidiary to one of two investment groups that have been negotiating to acquire the money-losing retail operations, which have dragged down their parent company for the last several years.

According to sources close to the company, Pacific Enterprises, the parent of the Southern California Gas Co., has been actively negotiating with Odyssey Partners, a New York investment group, and Leonard Green & Partners in Los Angeles.

The sources added that the Green group appears to be the winning bidder and said an announcement of the sale could come as early as next week. A price could not be confirmed, but it is clear Pacific Enterprises will not get anything close to the $850 million it paid to acquire the group of six retail chains, which include Thrifty Drug and Big 5 sporting goods stores.

Neither investment group could be reached and a Pacific Enterprises spokesman declined to comment on the pending sale.

However, Pacific Enterprises did announce Friday that it was writing down its investment in Thrifty Corp. by $475 million. The write-down was the third time the company has discounted the value of its Thrifty retail holdings. The company would not say what value it had assigned to those holdings, indicating that the value would be set by the buyer.

As a result of the $475-million write-down, Pacific Enterprises said it lost $464 million in the first quarter of 1992, compared to a gain of $41 million for the same period last year. Revenue for the period was $812 million, down 13.4% from the $938 million posted a year ago.

Thrifty Corp. includes three drug chains--Thrifty Drug Stores, Pay ‘n Save Drug Stores and Bi-Mart--and three sporting goods outfits--Big 5, Gart Bros. and MC Sporting Goods. The companies, which together lost $164 million on sales of $3.3 billion last year, employ a total of 29,000 workers nationwide in about 1,059 stores.

Thrifty Corp.’s poor performance caused Pacific Enterprises to lose $88 million last year and to eliminate its common stock dividend. On Friday, Pacific Enterprises stock closed at $20.25 on the New York Stock Exchange, down $0.125. The earnings report came after the markets closed.

The pending buyers are said to want the entire Thrifty Corp., and the sale is not expected to require splitting up the subsidiary--at least not immediately. Sources close to Thrifty said the Green group bid would allow Thrifty’s current management to remain with the company.

Last year, Leonard Green & Partners bought a majority interest in Almac’s Supermarkets Inc, a leading New England grocery retailer, from Yucaipa Stores, the Claremont-based owner of the Boys and Viva supermarket chains, for about $100 million. The year before, the investment group bought Alaska’s largest food and drug retailer and wholesaler for about $300 million. In late 1988, Odyssey Partners led a highly leveraged $334-million buyout of Micom Communications, a Simi Valley high-technology company. But within two years, the company, renamed Black Box, was burdened with a huge debt load and was losing money.

Times staff writer Michael Parrish contributed to this story.