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🟡 FORMERLY PE OWNED
Sears
department store · Hoffman Estates, IL
PE Firm
ESL Investments (Lampert)
Year Acquired
2005
“Eddie Lampert performed a 13-year autopsy on a living patient and sold the organs.”
What Happened
- •Store count collapsed from ~3,500 locations (2005) to ~425 at bankruptcy (2018) to just 5 remaining stores today
- •Lampert spun off 235 most profitable stores into Seritage Growth Properties for $2.7B — a REIT he chairs and owns 43.5% of
- •Sears sued Lampert for stripping 'billions of dollars of assets'; settled in 2022 for $175M — a fraction of what was extracted
- •ESL held $2.66B in Sears debt at bankruptcy, collecting $200M-$225M annually in interest while stores deteriorated
The Damage Done
- ▸Store count collapsed from ~3,500 locations to just 5 remaining stores today
- ▸Appliance repair and warranty service — once the gold standard — became unreliable as technicians were laid off and parts became unavailable
- ▸Craftsman tools, Kenmore appliances, and DieHard batteries — iconic brands built over decades — were sold off to competitors
- ▸Closed stores left strip malls and shopping centers across America with massive vacant anchor spaces