Ahead of the Bell: Sears completes spinoff

Hoffman Estates-based Sears Holdings has completed the spinoff of its Hometown and Outlet stores.

The Hoffman Estates, Ill., company had signaled in February that it would split off the companies as a separate publicly traded entity.

Sears Holdings Corp. received $446.5 million in gross proceeds. This included a cash dividend of $100 million paid by Sears Hometown before the spinoff and $346.5 million in proceeds from the rights offering.

The offering of rights to purchase shares of the spinoff debuted on the Nasdaq under the “SHOSR” ticker symbol in September. The rights offering expired on Monday.

Sears Holdings, which also runs Kmart, said Thursday that Sears Hometown is expected to start trading on the Nasdaq on Friday under the “SHOS” ticker symbol.

Sears Holdings will continue to trade on the Nasdaq under the “SHLD” ticker symbol. The company has more than 2,600 stores in the U.S. and Canada.

Sears Holdings finished at $60.92 on Thursday. They are down 29 percent from their high of $85.90 set on March 16. They traded as low as $28.29 on Jan. 5.