46 unprofitable Sears stores to close in November

Sears Holdings Corp. is closing another 13 Kmart stores and 33 Sears stores as sales shrink and losses grow. | AP file photo

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. — Sears Holdings Corp. is closing another 13 Kmart stores and 33 Sears stores as sales shrink and losses grow.

The ailing company said Thursday that liquidation sales at the 46 unprofitable stores marked for closure will start Aug. 30, and the stores will close in November. The company said it informed its workers.

Two Illinois stores will close: the Sears in Bloomington and the Kmart in Steger.

The move comes as Sears is considering a bid from CEO Eddie Lampert’s hedge fund ESL Investments to acquire its jewel Kenmore appliances from the company for $400 million. The company has put others of its famous brands on the block before.

In January, Sears had said it was closing 100 stores. It announced in May that it was closing another 100. As of May 5, it had about 894 stores, down from about 1,000 at the end of last year. The number of stores peaked in 2012 at 4,000, which included the Sears Canada division that was later spun off. In 2005, when Sears merged with Kmart, it operated 2,200 stores.

The latest closings underscore the deep-rooted problems at Sears, a onetime powerhouse retailer that survived two world wars and the Great Depression but has been calving off pieces of itself as it burns through money.