Sears

Sears Holdings Corporation (parent company)
legal form	Corporation
ISIN	US8123501061
founding	1886
Seat	Hoffman Estates , Illinois , United States
management	Edward Lampert ( Chairman ); Bruce Johnson ( CEO );
Number of employees	196,000
sales	31.2 billion US dollars
Branch	retail trade
Website	www.searsholdings.com
	Status: 2014

Emblem on a Sears automobile

$ 25,000 redemption bond from 1976, issued to broker Paine Webber (Jackson & Curtis)

Sears Holdings Corporation (formerly Sears, Roebuck and Company ) is a United States trading company and headquartered in Chicago , Illinois . Sears was listed on the S&P 500 stock index.

history

The company was founded in Minneapolis in 1886 by Richard Warren Sears as the Sears Watch Company . The first mail-order catalog was published as early as 1887. In 1893 the company moved to Chicago, where Sears hired watchmaker AC Roebuck and participated. The company then traded as Sears, Roebuck & Co.

As early as 1895, Julius Rosenwald and Aaron Nussbaum took over Roebuck's shares in the company for 75,000 US dollars; Rosenwald became vice president of the company, which had sales of $ 750,000 in 1895. In 1906 it went public. Rosenwald took over the management in 1908. Automobiles were also made between 1906 and 1912.The vehicles were initially produced for Sears. From late 1909 to 1912 they were manufactured by the subsidiary Sears Motor Car Works in Chicago.

In 1909, Sears retired and Rosenwald took over management. Conversion at this time, 40 million US dollars . Lessing Julius Rosenwald was chairman of the board at Sears from 1932 to 1939. He was the son of the co-owner and former CEO. Founded as a mail order company, there were also smaller shops; mainly so that customers could pick up the goods ordered via the catalog.

After World War II , Sears also opened large stores in shopping malls in the United States and became the largest retailer in the United States until the 1980s.

Sears was the first and so far only retail company that established a universal credit card , not a customer card with a payment function, on the market. The card is still available today under the name Discover Card , even if it is now issued by a bank.

In 1974 the Sears Tower was completed in Chicago , still the third tallest building in the USA . The Sears company had its headquarters there until the 1990s. In 2009, however, the building was renamed Willis Tower as a new tenant moved in, Willis Group Holdings , which also acquired the naming rights to the building.

In 1993, Allstate, previously owned by Sears, went public and Sears sold its shares.

Kmart and the retail chain Sears announced on November 17, 2004 plans to merge, which were implemented in March 2005. The new company created the third largest retail group in the USA after Wal-Mart and Home Depot , named as Sears Holding with headquarters in Hoffman Estates , Illinois ; the new company continued to operate the two existing brands, Sears and Kmart . The new company, Sears Holdings Corporation , was led by a board of directors made up of seven members from Kmart and three members from Sears . De facto, despite the name, it was a takeover of Sears by Kmart.

Kmart stockholders received one share of the new company (stock exchange). Sears shares were converted into a combination of 55% shares (one old to ½ new share ratio) and 45% cash ($ 50 per share).

In 2013, the subsidiary Lands' End , which is also represented in Germany, was sold through an IPO.

After years of persistent losses, from 2011 to 2014 the number of stores was reduced from 4000 to around 1700. By the end of 2017, there was a further reduction to 510 locations. A similar development took place at the subsidiary brand Kmart , where between 2005 and the end of 2017 the number of locations was reduced from around 1,400 to 570.

In June 2017, bankruptcy protection was filed for the Canadian subsidiary Sears Canada and a few weeks later the closure of all branches in Canada was announced. The sale should be completed on January 21, 2018. On October 15, 2018, the parent company Sears Holdings Corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection . At the time, Sears had $ 11.3 billion in liabilities, offset by just $ 6.9 billion in assets.