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The Hartford Courant
4:25 p.m. EST, December 29, 2011
Sears released a list Thursday of 79 of the 100 to 120 stores it plans to close in the United States and Canada, and no Connecticut Kmart stores or Sears stores were listed.
But that doesn’t mean Sears and Kmart stores around the state will escape the retailer’s ax.
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Parent company Sears Holdings Corp, promised to post updates to the list as they become available.
Sears Holdings, which operates 4,000 full-scale and specialty stores in North America, announced Tuesday that it planned to close up to 120 poorly performing stores after the company reported overall sales were down more than 5 percent in the last three months of this year — prime-time holiday sales.
The list of 79 store closures includes 38 Kmarts and 41 Sears stores, including 25 full-line Sears stores. Most of the stores slated for closure are in the Midwest and South. But two New England stores that operate under the Sears Grand/Essentials banner in Nashua and Keene, N.H., will be closing.
The company has been mum since Tuesday’s announcement. Sears posted the list of 79 store closures Thursday afternoon, but the list was incomplete. The retailers did not indicate when it would make additions to the posting and did not specify closing dates for any of the stores listed.
The Hoffman Estates, Ill.-based retailer operates Kmart stores in Cromwell, Milford, Southbury, Torrington, Vernon and Waterbury and more than 30 Sears full-line and specialty stores around the state.
Holiday sales at Sears and Kmart stores were down more than 5 percent in the last three months of this year compared to the same period last year, the company said in its fourth-quarter filing. In particular, sales of consumer electronics were down at both chains.
Sears, the nation’s fourth largest general merchandise retailer, is changing its strategy of trying to nurse marginally performing stores back to health, the company’s chief executive Lou D’Ambrosio said earlier this week.
“We no longer believe that to be the appropriate action in this environment,” D’Ambrosio said Tuesday.
“We expect these store closures to generate $140 [million] to $170 million of cash as the net inventory in these stores is sold and we expect to generate additional cash proceeds from the sale or sublease of the related real estate,” he added.
The company has said it will focus on improving its profit margin
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