Sears To Close 72 More Stores This Year

Sears Holdings announced on Thursday that it will be shuttering more stores this year.

The company said it would be closing an additional 72 more stores in 2018 as the struggling retailer has seen same-store sales decline at a double-digit percentage rate.

Sears stated, “We continue to evaluate our network of stores, which are a critical component in our transformation, and will make further adjustments as needed and as warranted.”

The list of stores will be provided later by the company.

At the end of last year, Sears and Kmart combined had about 1,000 locations. The company announced in January that it would be closing 64 Kmart stores this year and 39 Sears stores.

In the last few years hundreds of stores had already closed.

Eddie Lampert, the company’s CEO has said to CNBC, “We’re not liquidating just to liquidate. We’re liquidating … to get capital to put into our pension plan. As opposed to erring on the side of, ‘This store might work.’ … If it’s not working, we’ve invested the time, so we’ve got to close it because we are now jeopardizing this [store] over here.”

His hedge fund ESL investments has been persuing a buy of some of Sear’s assets.

Disclaimer: We have no position in Sears Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: SHLD) and have not been compensated for this article.