{"id":42319,"date":"2017-01-05T09:49:42","date_gmt":"2017-01-05T14:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=42319"},"modified":"2017-01-05T09:49:42","modified_gmt":"2017-01-05T14:49:42","slug":"sears-to-sell-craftsman-for-900-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2017\/01\/sears-to-sell-craftsman-for-900-million\/","title":{"rendered":"Sears to Sell Craftsman for $900 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"

Special to the Lehigh Acres Gazette<\/p>\n

\"\"Sears Holdings Corp. agreed to sell its Craftsman tool brand to\u00a0Stanley Black & Decker Inc. for about $900 million, marking Chief Executive Officer Edward Lampert\u2019s third move in the last two weeks to prop up the beleaguered retailer with fresh sources of funding.<\/p>\n

Under terms of the deal, Stanley will pay $525 million at closing and $250 million after three years, the companies said in a statement Thursday. The buyer also will make annual payments on new Craftsman sales for 15 years.<\/p>\n

With Sears\u2019s department-store business continuing to bleed cash, Lampert has turned to selling and spinning off assets to keep the company operating. The hedge fund manager, who\u2019s also the retailer\u2019s chairman and largest investor, agreed\u00a0earlier this week to lend the company $500 million and said last month that affiliates of his firm would offer it a $200 million line of credit. Sears also has been reviewing its DieHard batteries and Kenmore appliance brand for potential sales.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking ahead, we will continue to take actions to adjust our capital structure, meet our financial obligations and manage our business to better position Sears Holdings to create long-term value,\u201d Lampert said in Thursday\u2019s statement.<\/p>\n

Investors cheered the move, sending Sears shares up 8.6 percent to $11.25 at 8:25 a.m. in early trading in New York. The Hoffman Estates, Illinois-based Company had slumped 55 percent last year as the company continued to post losses. New Britain, Connecticut-based Stanley advanced 2.5 percent to $119.44.<\/p>\n

Iconic Brand<\/p>\n

Craftsman has been part of Sears since 1927, when the retailer\u00a0acquired the brand<\/a>\u00a0for $500. The tools debuted in the iconic Sears catalog two years later. By the 1940s, the brand benefited from a surge in power-tool sales. In 1981, President Jimmy Carter was given a Craftsmen woodworking set as his farewell gift when he left the White House.<\/p>\n

Craftsman was eventually offered through other retailers, including Costco Wholesale Corp. and Ace Hardware, but Sears\u2019s decline has taken a toll on the brand. Only about 10 percent of Craftsman-branded products are currently sold outside of Sears, and the agreement allows Stanley to increase Craftsman sales in these untapped channels. Sears will continue to carry Craftsman products at its stores. The license will be royalty-free for 15 years, and then generate 3 percent afterward.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo accommodate the future growth of Craftsman, we intend to expand our manufacturing footprint in the U.S.,\u201d\u00a0Stanley CEO James M. Loree said in the statement. \u201cThis will add jobs in the U.S., where we have increased our manufacturing headcount by 40 percent in the past three years.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pledge to support U.S. manufacturing comes at a time when President-elect Donald Trump has criticized companies for shifting jobs overseas. Ford Motor Co. canceled a $1.6 billion Mexican expansion\u00a0earlier this week<\/a>, saying it would add positions in Michigan instead.<\/p>\n

The Craftsman deal comes about three months after Stanley agreed to buy Newell Brands Inc.\u2019s tools business for $1.95 billion.<\/p>\n

Generating Cash<\/p>\n

For Sears, the sale is the latest in a long string of moves designed to generate cash for the ailing retail business. The company raised $2.5 billion in 2015 by forming a real estate investment trust that bought more than 250 of its properties.<\/p>\n

And more property sales may be coming. This week\u2019s $500 million loan was secured by the company\u2019s real estate in anticipation that a future sale of some properties could help pay back the debt.<\/p>\n

Lampert also previously spun off the Sears Hometown & Outlet business and Lands\u2019 End clothing line.<\/p>\n

Still, challenges remain. The company needs to raise a total of roughly $1.5 billion to make it through 2017 comfortably, Christina Boni, an analyst at Moody\u2019s Investors Service, has estimated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Special to the Lehigh Acres Gazette Sears Holdings Corp. agreed to sell its Craftsman tool brand to\u00a0Stanley Black & Decker Inc. for about $900 million, marking Chief Executive Officer Edward… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42319"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42319\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}