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The company’s last shot at survival is a $4.6 billion proposal, put forward by Chairman Eddie Lampert.

The bid, largely composed of outside capital, has faced challenges from the start.

The 125-year-old company has more than 68,000 employees.

Sears, the 125-year-old icon, has 24 hours to survive.

The employer of more than 68,000 filed for bankruptcy in October. Its last shot at survival is a $4.6 billion proposal put forward by its chairman, Eddie Lampert, to buy the company out of bankruptcy through his hedge fund, ESL Investments. ESL is the only party offering to buy Sears as a whole, people familiar with the situation tell CNBC. Without that bid or another like it, liquidators will break the company up into pieces.

But as Lampert stares down a deadline of Dec. 28 to submit his offer, he is quickly running out of time. As of Thursday afternoon, Lampert had neither submitted his bid, nor rounded up financing, the people familiar said. Should Lampert submit a bid, Sears’ advisors would have until Jan. 4 to decide whether he is a “qualified bidder.” Only then, could ESL take part in an auction against liquidation bids on Jan. 14.

It is possible Lampert, Sears’ largest investor, secures financing in time to meet the deadline, these people said. The hedge fund manager turned retailer has managed last-minute feats before. Due to requirements by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Lampert will be required to make his bid public. That stipulation that could sway him to prolong the filing until its exact deadline of 4:00 p.m. ET Friday.

Nonetheless, the quickly approaching cutoff puts Sears the closest to death it has ever been. Should Lampert miss the deadline, it would put Sears and Kmart on the path to liquidation. That process would take weeks, according to the guidelines laid out by the bankruptcy court. But the process has also already slowly begun, with the retailer weighing the closure of 50 to 80 more stores, CNBC has reported.

The people familiar with these developments requested anonymity because the talks are confidential.

Sears filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 15 with a little under 700 stores. At that time, it said it would close 142 unprofitable stores. In November it announced the closure of 40 additional stores.

Sears in bankruptcy has, therefore, continued a trend that far preceded its chapter 11 filing, a slow-paced liquidation.

Once the nation’s biggest retailer, it was also its first “everything store,” stocking everything from jewelry to clothing, from hardware to prefabricated homes. But the department store industry has struggled over the past half-decade, as the mall has become less convenient and apparel more casual. Rival J.C. Penney is also feeling the pressure of this trend, on Wednesday its shares dipped below a $1 for the first time.

Lampert had a plan to save Sears by combining it with Kmart, which ESL bought out of bankruptcy after the discount store’s 2002 bankruptcy filing. But the cultures of Sears and Kmart employees were different, as were its shoppers — cross-selling Sears’ appliances and Kmart’s apparel proved less successful than originally planned.

In his five-year reign as CEO and even longer term as chairman, Lampert has largely run the company like the hedge-fund manager he once was, say former executives, employees and people familiar with his thinking. That meant investing less in its stores and advertising, believing such investments were optional.

It also meant keeping Sears alive through complex investments from ESL. Lampert poured millions of dollars through ESL into Sears, which struggled for years with losses and debt. Those investments came amid Lampert’s strong belief in his ability to turn Sears around, in part through its loyalty program, “Shop Your Way,” say people familiar with Lampert’s thinking. But Sears finally hit a cliff, when it had a $134 million payment it could not meet.

Financing an issue
Keeping Sears afloat was easier for Lampert before it filed for bankruptcy. ESL’s loans, while ample, had been largely protected by Sears’ assets, like its prime real estate. Once it filed for bankruptcy, Sears has had far less to offer its lenders and Lampert has had less control.

ESL was in talks to help finance a junior portion of Sears’ bankruptcy loan. Those talks fell apart after he asked lenders to improve the terms of the loan and offer him more protections.

His $4.6 billion offer to buy Sears, meantime, is comprised of various tranches of financing, and little of his own cash. The outside lenders he is asking to support his bid lack the same apparent drive that Lampert had to turning Sears around.

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Bye Sears. You sucked.

Up until the 2000s they were fine

As a kid, they were the place to go.

Let it go..

Sears was awesome... that catalog. RIP

Yep their downfall is their own doing. I remember being able to go buy quality tools from them if I was missing something. That time has long passed.

Local Sears has/had been stuck in the mid 1990s.

Stale inventory, stale/dated looking stores etc.

Once Craftsman went downhill, I had no reason to set foot in one.

What do they have left of value? A bunch of overvalued real estate in dying malls?

The Sears lingerie section was my go to for mastubatory stimulation in my misspent youth.

Amazon is the 21st century Sears

They closed a Sears in Anchorage a while back and now they are opening up a new one on the other side of town!

Our mall has a Sears appliance store (they only sell appliances/TVs/tools). I wonder what will end up happening to them?

Let him win more by sinking his own money into the dumpster fire, he rented, filled, and lit.

The sears catalog must have lost its magic when kids got smart phones which could go to porn sites

I'm not sure why, but this makes me sad.

Everything has a half-life.

Sounds to me like Eddie Lampert is the one who fucked the whole thing up.  Hedge Fund vampire.

And had they not suffered from piss poor vision and management, they could have been as big as Amazon is today............

What a sad situation, but I'm surprised they lasted this long. 60k+ folks are on the verge of losing employment, a classic American retail instuition is about to disappear and this will likely be the final nail in the coffin for hundreds of malls across the country. All due to a series of management failures to adapt to obvious changes in the marketplace. Sears/Kmart should've been Amazon.

If Sears/Kmart ends up liquidating I would not be surprised if they if they kick off a retail level commercial real estate crisis. The amount of leveraged real estate tied up in these companies must be in the hundreds of billions. Not good...

Just close it down already. Everyone knows it is done and over, just turn the lights off and make it official.

At the end of all of this, all that will be left is some memories and a case study in some management textbooks about how shitty management and an unwillingness to change can kill a dominant company.

Sears was a great place until the late 90's

fuck em

When I was a kid, there was no better sight than that of the Sears Christmas catalog in the mailbox. The stuff dreams were made of.

But that was a long time ago.

Sears could have been the original Amazon, but they fucked it up.

My mom use to work at Sears.

so should I buy this 5 year warranty extension for my washing machine they just mailed me or not?

I can't help but think that with the right vision, and execution, Sears could be come the number one competitor to both Wal-Mart and Amazon, if they really tried. A higher class of products than Wal-Mart with the selection and ease of purchase of Amazon.

I remember going thru the Sears and JC Penny catalogs and circling what I wanted for Christmas

Sears could have built a solid website and been a player for the amazon story. Sears had products and regional distribution centers in place. Sears was great and is now sad. There is a sears house in the town I live in.  It was delivered by train.

Sears' market base, the middle class has been shrinking.  There has been no economic recovery since 2007/8 but perception management is great!  So many people including members here mistake the stock market with the strength of the economy.

Going to this model would be the best thing that Sears could do.  Nobody is buying clothes or jewelry at Sears.

every appliance in my home up until this year when I replaced water heater and fridge was kenmore..

It's a shame.  So much of my first 30 years was tied to Sears.

Should of happened to some other companies that were "Bailed Out" as well.

There are many department stores trying to get American buisiness. Sears had a genius idea to sell a full line of quality tools. This meant sears was the only store that had a draw for the dad of the family.

I don’t think sears has ever fully understood the point when they were doomed was when they handed the dad a rebuilt used ratchet rather than a new one off the shelf. And the huge miss of not putting the catalog online.

Sears, when you started to make your crapsmans in China, i was out, how stupid, even a drug addicted high school drop out wouldn't of sent crapsman to china

Attached File

I live in one of those.

this

Dbl Tap

F.

& now, I actually want a pop...

Lol, mom always wondered why those pages were torn, worn, bent and just outright abused

I and my wife worked at both for many years. They're getting what they deserve.

Stevie Wonder could see this coming.

Evolve or die.

It wasn’t always so. Sad to see them go but times change and Sears didn’t.

I tend to agree with you. Conditions have improved since 2008 but most of it is fueled by debt and its still a trainwreck behind the scenes. Go to any Wal-Mart in rural TN or AL on welfare day and observe how the parking lot is packed to capacity with hundreds of able bodied people slothing around redeeming their SNAP vouchers. Clearly this is not a sign of a healthy and stable society. The real world unemployment and underemployment numbers are not 4% for sure. I get a chuckle out of the local companies complaining they can't find workers for $10 an hour. Welcome to 2018 where the average welfare rat is making twice that sitting on their ass .

I think the entire system is a house of cards at this point. 22 trillion in debt, 1+trillion yearly deficits and growing and  the average guy is in debt up to his eyeballs with almost no savings.

They were opening another. I doubt you’ll see a ribbon cutting now.

I have a lot of childhood memories shopping at Sears with my parents.  Sad to see it go.  Can't blame everything on Lampert cause most big chain stores are closing up.  It would've taken an exceptional visionary to keep it going.  I wonder what if Elon Musk ran it.

Sears should be put down quickly instead of Lampert taking it over and giving it a slow agonizing death.

So I guess that Seats gift card i found in the back of my nightstand drawer is worthless

Fond memories. I remember ordering back to school clothes from the Penny’s catalog along with furnishings, curtains and everything else then going to the mall with mom to pick them up at the catalog counter. Afterwards me and my siblings would roam the mall for awhile before meeting up at Subarro in the food court for a slice of overpriced greasy pizza.

Subarro has been gone for damn near 20 years. Sears has been gone for almost 10. JC Penny is rumored to be closing soon and Famous Barr went away around the time Sears did. No idea how that mall survives today other than being in a TIF district.

Really sad. That the once great retailer that should have been first on the internet band wagon, missed it by a mile.