The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Owner of Sears, Kmart to close 96 more stores, cites ‘challenges’
Company is getting $250 million of new capital from its owners.
The owner of Sears and Kmart is closing almost a third of its remaining stores just months after buying the struggling retailer out of bankruptcy.
Transform Holdco’s shutdown of 96 locations will leave just 182 outlets for the company, which was once America’s biggest department store chain. The merchant “has faced a difficult retail environment and other challenges” and is “pruning operations that have struggled due to increased competition and other factors,” Transform said in an emailed statement late Thursday.
The company is getting $250 million of new capital from its owners, led by Eddie Lampert’s hedge fund ESL Investments Inc., along with a third-party investor.
“This is an acceleration of the death march that Eddie Lampert began when he combined Sears and Kmart over a decade ago,” said Burt Flickinger, managing director of the retail-advisory firm Strategic Resource Group. “It is a classic illustration of how most Wall Street types have a deficient understanding of what’s required for a Main Street retail company to be effective.”
The announcement shows that Sears, which narrowly escaped liquidation after its 2018 bankruptcy, is withering as consumers move on from the chain. Lampert bought Sears’ assets out of bankruptcy earlier this year, expressing faith in its future and vowing to preserve jobs, but it’s still facing the same fundamental problems that led it to seek court protection last year.
“We will endeavor to create and deliver value through a strategic combination of our better performing retail stores and our service businesses, brands and other assets, and expect to realize a significant return on our extensive portfolio of owned and leased real estate,” the company said. It listed the Kenmore and DieHard brands among its assets.
Details of the announcement were reported earlier by Reuters.