Sears to close 72 more stores as sales fall and losses mount

Sears will close another 72 stores as sales plunge and losses grow.

The beleaguered retailer said that it has identified about 100 stores that are no longer turning a profit, and the majority of those locations will be shuttered soon.

In Southern California, the planned closures include the Sears store at Puente Hills Mall in City of Industry.

Shares of Sears Holdings Corp. plunged 8.4% in Thursday morning trading to $2.94 on the news.

Sears lost $424 million, or $3.93 per share, for the period ended May 5. It earned $245 million, or $2.29 per share, a year earlier, a quarter that included a $492-million gain tied to the sale of the Craftsman brand.

Revenue tumbled more than 30% to $2.89 billion, with store closings already underway contributing to almost two thirds of the decline.

Sales at stores open at least a year, a key gauge of a retailer’s health, tumbled 11.9%. Comparable-store sales slid 9.5% at Kmart stores, and 13.4% at Sears.

The onetime powerhouse retailer, based in Hoffman Estates, Ill., survived two world wars and the Great Depression but has been calving off pieces of itself as it burns through money amid a consumer migration to online competitors such as Amazon.

Kenmore, the retailer’s appliance brand, became the latest potential sale after ESL Investments, the company’s largest shareholder, headed by Sears Chairman and CEO Edward Lampert, said it might be interested in buying it.

Lampert, who combined Sears and Kmart in 2005 after helping to bring the latter out of bankruptcy, has long pledged to save the famed retailer, which started in the 1880s as a mail-order catalog business.

UPDATES:

1:50 p.m.: This article was updated to include the planned store closure in City of Industry.

This article was originally published at 7:20 a.m.