Stratford Square Sears among latest stores that will close

And then there were four.

The holding company for Sears announced Wednesday its store at Stratford Square Mall in Bloomingdale will be among 26 Sears and Kmart stores that will close nationwide in October. With the store's closing, the one-time retail giant will have suburban locations at only Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, Spring Hill Mall in West Dundee and stores in North Riverside and Chicago Ridge.

Transform Holdco, the company created by former President and CEO Edward Lampert that bought Sears Holdings Corp. in a bankruptcy sale last year, said the closures were necessary due to a weak retail market and "differences with Sears Holdings over our purchase agreement."

The company did not specify what those differences were, but Bloomberg News reported this week a federal court judge ruled claims made Lampert's ESL Investments hedge fund against the estate of Sears Holdings have so little priority that they are likely worth a fraction of what they are demanding. The decision likely means ESL and other creditors will get far less than the $718 million they're seeking from what's left of the old company to pay remaining claims, according to the Bloomberg story.

Liquidation sales for the closing stores are expected to begin around Aug. 15, according to Transform Holdco. Sears Auto Centers at the closing stores will be shuttered in late August.

Stratford Square is the only store in Illinois to close in this round, but two stores in northern Indiana will also be shuttered.

The company did not say how many employees will be affected by the closures, but they will be eligible for the same number of weeks of severance that were offered employees of Sears Holdings Corporation before its bankruptcy filing last October.

"We will continue to evaluate our network of Sears and Kmart stores and cannot rule out additional store closures in the near term," the company said in the statement. "Our goal remains to return the company to profitability and preserve as many jobs as possible in the communities we serve."

The company said its strategy will move away from the big box stores of the past, and instead focus on expansion of smaller stores, which includes its Home & Life stores and Sears Hometown stores.

Lampert's ESL Investments Inc. hedge fund won a $5.2 billion bid to salvage Sears Holdings Corp. after it filed for bankruptcy in October 2018. The new company, Transform Holdco, took over 425 stores and the rest of the company's assets.