Look at where Sears plans not to be. No Sears in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Dallas, or San Diego. The only cities with 1M+ people in the Go Forward Sears plan are San Antonio and San Jose. Many of those stores were more profitable than what's left. The takeaway is that the second that ESL or Seritage find a use for those stores can be more profitable than Sears, it's liquidation time. Ch 11 is a godsend for him, because he really wants to get rid of the leases he can't sell, the employees and businesses he doesn't want, and and the pensions he doesn't want to pay. He tried to pay out zero severance if he could've gotten away with it, but faced a revolt, and he needs some peons to do the dirty work.