Sears avoids liquidation; stores will remain open

Sears will live on NEW YORK — — at least for now. The company’s chairman and largest shareholder, Eddie Lampert, won a bankruptcy auction for Sears, averting liquidation of the iconic chain, according to a source familiar with the negotiations. The person agreed to speak on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the negotiation publicly.

Lampert, 56, is the only one to put out a bid for the whole company. The billionaire had sweetened his bid to more than $5 billion over the last few days through an affiliate of his hedge fund ESL. Details of the final terms couldn’t be learned. The plan still must be approved by the bankruptcy judge in White Plains, New York, who is presiding over the court case.

Lampert, who steered the company into bankruptcy protection, may be able to keep the roughly 400 remaining Sears stores open, meaning tens of thousands of jobs have been saved, at least for now.

Whether Sears, founded 132 years ago as a mail order watch business, can survive in the Amazon era remains questionable. Already, Sears has outlasted Toys R Us, Sports Authority, Bon-Ton Stores and dozens of others that were unable to survive the torrents of a massive recession and unrelenting technological change.

Sears, which also operates Kmart, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October.

At that time, it had 687 stores and 68,000 workers. At its peak in 2012, its stores numbered 4,000.

Lampert, who gave up the CEO title when the Sears filed for chapter 11, says there’s still potential for the company. Industry analysts are not so sure.

“While there’s no doubt that a shrunken Sears will be more viable than the larger entity, which struggled to turn a profit, we remain extremely pessimistic about the chain’s future,” said Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail.