Is Kmart Shutting Down?
It looks as if Sears Holdings (NASDAQ: SHLD) could be getting ready to shut Kmart down. Chain Store Age reported that Sears is planning to close 68 Kmart and Super Kmart stores during summer and fall.
These closings are in addition to the 30 Kmart and Sears closures scheduled earlier this year. When the numbers are tallied together it looks as if Kmart could be shutting down 90 stores, or nearly 10% of its footprint; which is currently around 900 stores.
It is hard to determine how many Kmarts are closing, because Sears stopped sending out lists of closures a while back. Instead the chain simply announces closing sales to the local media, although reporters are now onto that trick. This means that there could be even more closings that are not on the list.
Is Kmart Pulling Out
Kmart is closing stores all over the country; although the most shutdowns are in the Midwest and Northeast. Eight stores are closing in both Illinois and Ohio, and eight in Pennsylvania.
It looks as if Kmart could be pulling out of entire regions because five stores are shutting down in Kentucky. Six stores are closing in California, mostly in the Central Valley region; and four are shutting down in Arizona. There will be four closures in Tennessee and three in Central Utah, but tow in Utah.
To make the retail apocalypse even worse; 10 Sears stores are also scheduled for closure, Chain Store Age reported. All the Kmart and Sears locations will shut down by late July, and the Super K Mart stores will close in September.
A big reason for the closings is to end lease payments to reduce costs for Sears. It looks as if the assumption that Sears and Kmart lose money every time they open the doors is true. The only way Sears can stop losing money is to lock the doors.
Eddie Lampert also claimed he hopes to generate a meaningful level of cash from the closures. That means the only way Sears can make money from some of its stores is to sell real estate.
For a full list of the latest round of Kmart and Sears Closings see Chain Store Age. If you want to shop at Kmart or Sears you had better hurry both historic chains could soon be gone completely.
