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Edward Lampert, CEO of Sears Holdings, has loaned the company an additional $100 million, the Chicago Tribune reports.
Sears borrowed the money from affiliates of ESL Investments, Lampert’s hedge fund, which also agreed to lend the company up to $100 million more by December, the article states.
Sears accessed these funds through “a January agreement that gave the company access to up to $500 million, backed by mortgages on 61 Sears properties,” according to the article.
According to the Tribune, Sears borrowed all $500 million from this agreement, but sold real estate to access this latest $100 million loan. Sears won’t be able to get the additional $100 million possibly available in December unless it identifies additional collateral, the newspaper reports.
Further details of the arrangement are detailed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
“We continue to focus on actions to provide the company with additional financial flexibility to generate liquidity and demonstrate our ability to manage our business while meeting all of our financial obligations,” Sears spokesperson Howard Riefs says in an email to the Chicago Tribune.
This is the latest loan Sears Holdings has received from Lampert’s hedge fund, which in July of this year agreed to give the company a $200 million credit line. In June, the company announced it was closing 265 stores, nearly 20 percent of its brick-and-mortar locations. Taking into account the previous loans and this most recent one, Lampert has loaned his company approximately $1.7 billion over the past two years.
