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Venerable Retailer Sears Likely to Close Many More Stores as Sales Continue to Slide — Net Losses in Past 6 Years Almost $10 Billion

Dec 8, 2016  •  Post A Comment

The sales picture continues to worsen for retailer Sears Holdings, which owns both the Sears chain and Kmart and which has lost in the neighborhood of $10 billion since 2010.

Fortune reports that the company today announced a net loss of $748 million in the third quarter, its worst performance in years. “Comparable sales, which exclude the impact of stores closed in the preceding year, fell 4.4% at Kmart and 10% at Sears, deeper drops than in recent quarters,” the story reports.

While the retail segment as a whole is tough right now, Sears’ results were “disastrous” in terms of market share, Fortune reports, noting that in the same period Macy’s was down just 0.45% while Kohl’s rose 1.30% and J.C. Penney was up 0.91%.

“Sears repeated its claim it’s in the midst of a reinvention that would see it become a membership-based retailer far less reliant on physical stores, and leveraging its Shop Your Way loyalty program — but all this has not yielded any results yet, even by the company’s own admission,” Fortune reports.

The report quotes Jason Hollar, Sears’ finance chief, saying the company “will continue to close unprofitable stores as their leases come due.” Hollar added that the company would “end up with a smaller but meaningfully sized store base.”

Hollar noted that the company has considerable flexibility to continue closing stores, given that about 550 of its stores have leases that will expire in the next few years.

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