Marciano’s Departure at Guess? Leaves Cherokee Investors Guessing : Apparel: Some speculate the French designer plans to take an active role in Sunland-based firm.

News that French designer Georges Marciano is resigning as chief executive of Guess? Inc., the Los Angeles-based clothing company that he and his three brothers founded, was the talk of the apparel industry last week. Perhaps especially so at Cherokee Inc., a Sunland-based maker of women’s clothing that has taken Marciano’s fancy.

On the day reports surfaced last week that Marciano was leaving Guess?, Cherokee’s stock surged 40%, to $4.38 a share, on unusually heavy trading volume.

The conjecture on Wall Street was that the stock leaped on speculation that Marciano--who in June had bought a 19.9% stake in Cherokee for $4.1 million--might take an active role in Cherokee, which recently emerged from bankruptcy reorganization.

“It wouldn’t be surprising if Georges takes more involvement at Cherokee,” said Paul Davner, an apparel-industry analyst at BDC Securities in New York.

One investment group that apparently is betting on such a move is Scattered Corp., a Chicago broker-dealer that bought an additional 70,000 shares of Cherokee last week for $3.13 a share. Scattered now owns 646,131 shares, or a 12.9% stake in Cherokee.

“We believe it’s a good investment,” said Leon Greenblatt, Scattered’s corporate secretary. He declined to talk about Marciano. Cherokee’s stock closed Monday at $4.25 a share, down 25 cents.

Marciano, 46, declined to comment about his departure from Guess?, though he reportedly is leaving because of disagreements with his brothers about the company’s direction. But Marciano said through a spokesperson that his purchase of Cherokee stock, for which he paid $3.75 to $4.38 a share, was for investment purposes.

That’s also what Marciano reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission in a filing in which Marciano said he believed Cherokee has a good product line and a valuable trade name.

Marciano is expected to make a statement about his plans at the end of this month when his departure from Guess? and related sale of his 40% stake in the private company to his brothers--for about $220 million--is completed. Marciano’s agreement with his brothers also calls for him not to compete against Guess? initially.

But Harry Bernard, an apparel consultant in San Francisco, said that agreement would probably not prevent Marciano from getting involved at Cherokee because the two companies compete in different markets. Guess?, whose line includes jeans and expensive denim jackets, caters to the upper end of the clothing market, while Cherokee’s casual women’s clothing and shoes are geared more toward the discounted market.

Cherokee’s management, which has maintained silence regarding Marciano, declined to comment on the latest stock surge and Marciano’s departure from Guess?. Yet there might be reason for Cherokee’s current management to be a bit nervous.

In April, Cherokee filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection because of its heavy debts, and problems from the recession and other rivals. The company lost $9.33 million on sales of $73.1 million in the first half of its fiscal year that ended May 30.

Jeffrey Deutschman and Robert Margolis, co-chairmen at Cherokee, and their group once had 67% of Cherokee’s stock, but they reluctantly gave up that control in order to pare down the company’s debt and emerge from bankruptcy in May. If Marciano gets involved at Cherokee, analysts say, changes are likely.

“The people at Cherokee are strong-willed and are singularly dynamic persons who like to make decisions for themselves,” Bernard said. But Georges Marciano is much the same, he said.