More Kmart and Sears stores will close by the end of the year.
Weeks after the announcement that 26 locations of Sears and Kmart would close in October, almost 100 additional stores face a similar fate in December or earlier.
Although corporate officials have not released an official list of locations, news broadcasts throughout the country have reported this week that some of the closures and lists have been posted on sites such as www.thelayoff.com.
"After careful investigation, we made the difficult decision to close the Kmart stores in Wayne, Trenton, Wall and Somers Point," TransformCo. said in a statement to Asbury Park Press, part of the USA TODAY Network, about four closures in New Jersey. "We encourage customers to continue shopping at Kmart.com for all of their product needs."
The sale of liquidations is expected to start in mid-September.
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In February, former Sears CEO, Eddie Lampert, closed a deal at the last minute to purchase Sears assets from bankruptcy and to keep about 400 stores open under a new entity, Transform Holdco, also known as Transformco.
Lampert, who renounced the CEO role when the company filed for bankruptcy, was the company's largest shareholder and creditor at the time of the bankruptcy.
In early August, when the closures were announced in October, the company said that more closures were still possible.
"By following these steps, we will continue to evaluate our network of Sears and Kmart stores and we cannot exclude additional store closures in the short term," said the company statement on August 6. "Our goal remains to make the company profitable again and to retain as many jobs as possible in the communities we serve."
From August 7, company spokesperson Larry Costello said about 380 locations remained open.
"As we continue our transformation efforts, we work closely with our stakeholders and evaluate our network of stores, operations and business strategy to stabilize operations and support a long-term path to profitable success," Transformco said in a statement. to USA TODAY Friday.