Dozens of ex-Sears stores to hit market

Bloomberg

The owner of former Sears stores is looking to sell as many as 50 properties as it tries to generate cash and focus on the development of other sites it owns.
Seritage Growth Properties, a real estate investment trust that emerged from the Sears bankruptcy, wants to unload 40 to 50 sites that “were less interesting in terms of uses of our capital,” according to CEO Andrea Olshan. “I’ve been very clear what I want to own and what I don’t think is strategic for us to own,” Olshan said.
Sears Holding Corp filed for bankruptcy in 2018, closed stores and terminated the last of its leases in March with Seritage, which owns 154 sites and has a stake in another 25. The company’s debt load is roughly double its market value of about $800 million. A $1.6 billion loan from Berkshire Hathaway Inc matures in 2023.
Eddie Lampert, who ran Sears and was its biggest shareholder when the company filed for bankruptcy, is the chairman of Seritage and of a separate holding company that owns what remains of Sears’s retail operations.
Lampert owned a 27.4% interest in Seritage and 4.2% of its Class A public shares as of March 31, according to a filing.