Sears Is Reeling, and Lots More Stores Are Closing

Chain to announce 72 more locations to be shuttered
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted May 31, 2018 9:35 AM CDT
Your Neighborhood Sears May Be Closing
Sears is closing more than 70 stores.   (AP Photo/Alan Diaz, File)

More big trouble for Sears: The retailing giant plans to close another 72 stores as sales plunge and losses grow. The beleaguered retailer said that it has identified about 100 stores that are no longer turning a profit, and the majority of those locations will be shuttered soon. The company said it would post of a list of the stores to close later on Thursday, reports the Wall Street Journal. Sears lost $424 million, or $3.93 per share, for the period ended May 5, per the AP. Revenue tumbled more than 30%, with store closings already underway contributing to almost two thirds of the decline. Sales at stores open at least a year, a key gauge of a retailer's health, tumbled 11.9%.

The one-time powerhouse retailer that survived two world wars and the Great Depression has been calving off pieces of itself as it burns through money. Kenmore, the retailer's appliance brand, became the latest potential sale after ESL Investments, the company's largest shareholder, headed by Sears Chairman and CEO Edward Lampert, said it might be interested in buying it. Lampert, who combined Sears and Kmart in 2005 after helping to bring the latter out of bankruptcy, has long pledged to save the famed retailer, which started in the 1880s as a mail-order catalog business.

(More Sears stories.)

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