The Sears/Kmart debacle is certainly the easiest to forecast. Down to just around 500 stores – combined – these two venerable nameplates are mere shadows of their former selves when each was at one time the largest retailer in America.
It doesn’t take an accountant – even a Sears Holding accountant – to figure out that when you’ve just taken out a loan at 10% interest to keep your doors open that the math doesn’t add up. If the Doubledead Twins had been throwing off that kind of cash to pay off debt in the first place it wouldn’t be in the shape it finds itself in today.
Look for a TRU-type mea culpa to rear its ugly little head come sometime during the first quarter of next year when Sears admits, you know what, we can’t do this anymore. The fact that it will have all those holiday cash receipts in hand will be just coincidence.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/warrenshoulberg/2018/11/28/the-last-christmas-maybe-for-sears-kmart-lord-taylor-and-penney-and-who-else/