More than a dozen of Sears Holdings‘ stores are being auctioned off online.
Commercial real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield has teamed up with Real Insight Marketplace, an online bidding platform, to help unwind some of the department store chain’s assets.
The 16 properties (all under the Sears banner, not Kmart), which were reviewed by CNBC, are mostly attached to malls and located in suburban markets. Five are in Texas, four are in Missouri, three are in Indiana, three are in Ohio and one is in Michigan.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on the auctioning Tuesday evening. A representative from Sears didn’t immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
According to Cushman & Wakefiled, roughly 200 investor groups have expressed interest in bidding on the properties, WSJ wrote. All bids are due by May 1, Real Insight Marketplace’s website says.
Sears has been unwinding its assets over the past few years in a bid to raise liquidity and get back to profitability. At the beginning of the year it announced it would be closing more than 100 additional stores by April.
Most recently, the company said it raised enough money to pay $407 million toward its pension plan in order to unlock and allow for the sale of 140 other properties. Sears hasn’t yet said when those sales will take place.
In the latest quarter, Sears’ revenue fell nearly 28 percent. Same-store sales were down more than 15 percent.
Real estate investment trusts have welcomed the opportunity to take back control of a Sears location and either bring in a tenant that is able to pay more rent per square foot, or move Sears into a smaller location. Just last week, for example, Pennsylvania REIT announced it would be moving off-price chain Five Below and TJX‘s HomeGoods into a space once occupied by Sears that had been recaptured by the landlord.
