Sears Holdings, which owns the Sears and Kmart retailers, likely will reveal today whether it will consider a controversial offer by its chairman and largest investor to keep a shrunken version of the company alive, USA Today reported. Without a deal, liquidation appears imminent. It could even proceed within weeks. The company filed for chapter 11 protection in October, hoping to use the debt-cutting process to rid itself of burdensome leases, financial liabilities and costs. That process has already involved hundreds of store closings for a company that once had more than 3,000 locations. With the company teetering on the edge of implosion, attorneys for Sears will appear before a federal bankruptcy judge in New York at 10 a.m. today to provide updates on the company's asset bidding process. The retailer received an acquisition offer from chairman and former CEO Eddie Lampert's hedge fund, ESL Investments, that would keep about 425 stores open and 50,000 employees working. Read more.
Occupancy issues are at the heart of many significant retail cases, as detailed in the ABI publication Retail and Office Bankruptcy: Landlord/Tenant Rights, available at the ABI Store.
