Image Source: Mike Kaslasnik, Flickr
Breaking News...
Sears Holdings (SHLD) has finally made it official early this morning - it has announced is has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The 132-year-old company changed the way Americans shopped but has suffered heavy losses for the past several years. It faced intense competition from online stores such as Amazon (AMZN) and had to contend with a general trend for shoppers to visit big box stores like Walmart (WMT) over department stores.
Sears Holdings, the parent company for Sears and Kmart, has also been weighed down by debt and other obligations such as its pensions which total $300 million per year. In fact the company has paid nearly $2 billion into pension plans in the past five years, and $4.5 billion since Sears and Kmart merged in 2005.
The move is not a surprise as the company had a debt payment of $134 million due today which it was not expected to be able to pay.
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