Sears Holdings Corp, the owner of the Sears and Kmart chains, reported a ninth consecutive quarterly loss. Sales continued to contract. The news sent shares plummeting by 5% during premarket trading.
The company, which is controlled by Eddie Lampert the manager of hedge funds, said its revenue for the quarter dropped by 9.7%, which reflected the impact felt due the separation of is Land’s End business, closing of stores and declines at its Sears Canada locations.
Sales at same-stores were down 1.7% in Kmart stores across the U.S. during the quarter. Sears, which as of August 2, had 2,302 U.S. stores of which 1,077 are Kmarts.
Retailers online like Amazon.com have eaten into the customer base of the company as well.
Sears since 2010 has closed close to 300 stores attempting to turn the business around.
The company has been also trying to sell its current stake of 50% in Sear Canada. That segment reported on Wednesday, a ninth loss in the past 14 quarters.
Sears announced on Thursday that it was continuing to explore with Merrill Lynch the sale of its Sears Canada stake or the entire company in Canada.
The Sears Canada segment of Sears had a $1.5 billion market value on Wednesday.
Sears announced also that it could close over 130 more stores than had been originally planned to be shuttered in 2014.
The latest loss attributable to the shareholder’s of the company widen to just over $573 million equal to $5.39 a share, during the quarter ending August 2, from the $194 million loss equal to $1.83 a share for the same period one year ago.
Revenue was down from $8.86 billion to $8.01 billion.
With certain items excluded, Sears had a loss per share of $3.00.
On average, analysts were expecting a per share loss no more than $2.63 on revenue of more than $8.12 billion.
Prior to the opening bell on Thursday, shares at Sears were off and selling at $34.
