Sears and Whirlpool split after 100 years

Whirlpool stock plunges 10.5 percent after Sears says it won’t sell company’s products

Sears no longer will sell Whirlpool appliances, ending a business relationship that dates back more than 100 years.

In a note sent to its stores last week, Sears said that Whirlpool was making demands that would’ve made it difficult to sell its appliances at a competitive price.

Sears has been ravaged by new competition for years, from stores such as Home Depot and also from Amazon.com and other online retailers. It’s been closing stores as competitors take a bigger slice of the territory it dominated for decades. In the U.S., consumers buy most of their small appliances from Walmart, according to market research firm TraQline. Amazon comes in second, with Sears placing fourth behind Target.

The end of the Sears-Whirlpool partnership is effective immediately and Sears also is pulling from its floor products from Whirlpool subsidiaries such as Maytag, KitchenAid and Jenn-Air.

The split affects Whirlpool ovens and stoves made in Cleveland, Tenn., where Whirlpool employs about 1,500 employees at the appliance manufacturing facilities that began in Bradley County a century ago.

Sears said it would sell off the remainder of its Whirlpool inventory. Its stores now will only sell its Kenmore products and other brands such as LG, Samsung, GE, Frigidaire, Electrolux and Bosch.

The relationship reaches back to 1916, when Whirlpool began making two types of wringer washers for Sears, Roebuck and Co., according to Whirlpool’s website. At that time, Sears operated exclusively through mail order. The Hoffman Estates, Ill. company, now Sears Holdings Corp., also owns Kmart.

Shares of Whirlpool Corp., based in Benton Harbor, Mich., fell by more than 10.5 percent Tuesday, dropping by $19.34 per share to close at $163.26 per share — the lowest price for the stock so far this year.