Sears Holdings Corp. said Tuesday that it hired David Lukes as president of real estate development, the latest effort to shore up finances that already includes short-term borrowings from majority shareholder ESL Investments as well as options to purchase interests in certain put agreements.
Lukes is from Mall Properties Inc., where he was president and chief executive officer of the privately owned $3 billion real estate firm. Before joining Mall Properties, Lukes was chief operating officer and executive vice president for Kimco Realty Corp.
Sears said Lukes will be responsible for developing certain of the retailer’s real estate assets, including those no longer in use as stores.
Related Articles
Sears, which operates under the Sears and Kmart nameplates, has over 4,000 full-line and specialty retail stores in the U.S. and Canada. The nameplates for the specialty stores include Sears Hometown Stores, Sears Hardware Stores and The Great Indoors Stores.
You May Also Like
The struggling retailer said in December that it would shutter between 100 and 120 full-line stores. In a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, the company said it will now close more stores: another 62 specialty sites during the first half of the year in a further effort to lower its expense structure. That brings the total store closures to around 175 for the first half of the year.
In an effort to appease the concerns of vendors as it embarks on initiatives to shore up its finances, a regulatory filing earlier this month disclosed that Edward Lampert, chairman of Sears and its top shareholder, ESL Investments, has options to purchase interests in future trade receivable put agreements that in effect would guarantee payment to vendors should the company file for bankruptcy.
In addition, Friday’s annual report filed with the SEC said Sears last year also increased its short-term borrowings from ESL by 12.4 percent, or $230 million in commercial paper, compared with $204.7 million in 2010. The unsecured commercial paper is issued by Sears Roebuck Acceptance Corp. and have an average maturity of 29 days. Sears paid ESL $2.6 million in interest in 2011. As of Jan. 28, ESL held $250 million in commercial paper, which includes $130 million held by Lampert, according to the filing.