The planned sale of Sears Holdings Corp. to its chairman, Edward Lampert, is under fire from the U.S. government’s pension insurer over a $1.7 billion funding gap that the agency says should sink his efforts to buy out the chain, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. filed papers on Saturday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, N.Y., in opposition to Lampert’s proposed $5.2 billion bid to purchase about 400 Sears and Kmart locations out of bankruptcy. The PGBC said on Jan. 18 it would assume responsibility for a pair of Sears defined-benefit pension plans, which cover 90,000 people and are 64 percent funded. Because the PBGC will make up the difference, it is the largest single unsecured creditor of Sears.
