Illinois Spared from Sears, Kmart Store Closings So Far
By Chuck Sudo in News on Dec 29, 2011 8:30PM
Sears Holdings Corp. released a list of 79 of its projected 120 store closings across the country. (We've included the list at the bottom of the post; apparently Sears' media website has the same lack of efficiency as their stores. Maybe worse.)
So far, Illinois has been spared in the purge, but there are another 41 stores to be announced. This list comes two days after Sears announced that weak holiday sales would precipitate the closings, and two weeks after they were awarded up to $250 million in tax breaks and other incentives by the State of Illinois to keep their headquarters in suburban Hoffman Estates. Sears CEO Louis D'Ambrosio spoke with Gov. Pat Quinn yesterday.
Quinn addressed the closings yesterday.
“We expect the headquarters to stay here and the jobs to be here, that’s what the agreement is all about,” Quinn told reporters Tuesday morning after an unrelated event at the Thompson Center in downtown Chicago. “The fact they have to close some stores around the country, that isn’t good news, but it doesn’t directly affect this agreement.”
But State Sen. Ira Silverstein criticized the company's decision to close the stores.
“It wasn’t a good Christmas or Hanukkah gift for the people of the state of Illinois,” Silverstein told reporters. “We gave them a very nice package and then for them to pull this off two days after Christmas — people are, you know, in holiday mode. It’s really upsetting and I think some questions have to be answered whether they knew they were going to do this at the time we voted on it several weeks ago,” he said.“I feel kind of betrayed.”
A press release announcing the closings read, "While our past practice has been to keep marginally performing stores open while we worked to improve their performance, we no longer believe that to be the appropriate action in this environment."
Sears expects the closings to generate $140-$170 million as the net inventory of the stores targeted for closure is sold; reduce 2012 peak domestic inventory by $300 million as the closures will lead to less inventory purchases; reduce fixed costs to $200 million; and work to improve gross profit through better inventory management and better pricing and promotions.