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Shares of Sears Holdings Corp. (SHLD) continued their downward trend on Tuesday, bringing the stock to a record low, troubled retailer adding restructuring expert Alan Carr to his board a few days ago. before the imminent repayment of its debt, which represents almost twice the company's value market.
Carr, who also heads Drivetrain LLC, a restructuring consultancy firm, will remain on the board of directors until 2019 Sears shareholders' meeting, the company said in a document filed with the SEC on Tuesday. . CEO Eddie Lampert has touted his "deep experience as a director for companies that have successfully lived through" complex organizational change. "This decision comes less than a week ahead of the Oct. 15 deadline. the payment of $ 88.5 million in outstanding Sears bonds, as well as $ 44.5 million in business loans, which could test the balance sheet of the group, which barely to survive long enough to tap into the funds – a boom in consumer spending planned for this year's holiday season.
Sears shares dropped 2.8% at the opening of the New York training on Tuesday and changed hands to a record low of 60.5 cents each, a decision that values the retailer at Hoffman Estates, Illinois at only $ 67.8 million.
Last month, ESL Investments Inc. of Lampert filed a restructuring plan with the SEC, including the sale of its congested real estate portfolio and debt swap with unsecured and subordinated creditors. This decision would reduce the current value of $ 5.6 billion in the debt store chain to approximately $ 1.2 billion, reduce annual interest expense by $ 33 million to $ 88 million, and extend debt maturities .
However, Lampert, who is both chairman of the board and chairman of the group, is also the largest shareholder, and perhaps even the largest creditor of Sears. In fact, an analysis of Sears' debt by TheStreet's sister publication, The Deal, revealed that at least $ 1.6 billion in Sears Holdings loans are held by subsidiaries of Lampert's ESL Investments.
"One could imagine that Sears could go bankrupt, get out of debt, enter into strike agreements with other lenders and Lampert could become the owner of all that would remain, including a significant amount of potentially valuable real estate." said Stephanie Gleason of TheDeal.
This may not be a great consolation for a company that has lost more than $ 11 billion over the last six years, closed hundreds of stores, laid off thousands of employees and seen its actions falling from a record $ 133 per share in the days leading up to the world day. financial crisis at its current valuation of penny stock.
"We are now going to work hard to execute liability management transactions in order to extend our track and continue our transformation strategy," Sears told its employees last month. "At the same time, we will continue to move forward with our other planned liquidity and cost measures."
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