Sears To Spin Off 3 Businesses, Posts Big 4Q Loss

Sears Holdings Corp. (SHLD) posted a fourth-quarter loss Thursday and announced plans to spin off its Hometown, outlet and hardware-store businesses, as part of an effort to pump more liquidity into the venerable retailer, Dow Jones Newswires reported.

Spinning off the three businesses, which involve about 1,250 Sears locations, will be done through a rights offering that Sears expects to raise $400 million to $500 million, Dow Jones noted. The Illinois-based company also plans to sell 11 stores for $270 million and to reduce inventory by $580 million, which would net Sears about $350 million.

The company during the fourth quarter had announced it was closing as many as 120 stores, and 100 members of its headquarters staff were dismissed last week.

For the quarter ended Jan. 28, Sears reported a loss of $2.4 billion, or $22.63 a share, which includes an accounting charge of $2.5 billion related to deferred tax assets, impairment of goodwill and store closings and severance. Without the charges Sears earned $58 million, or 54 cents a share.

Revenue dropped 3.8% to $12.5 billion, its fifth quarterly decline in a row.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected earnings of 78 cents a share and $12.44 billion in revenue.

Sears reported that same-store sales fell 4.1 percent at its U.S. namesake stores and dropped 2.7% at Kmart stores.