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Ex-CEO bids more than $5 billion to keep Sears open

Jan 16, 2019
Most of the bankrupt retailer's creditors want it liquidated, but not former CEO Eddie Lampert.

A Hail Mary bid to save Sears

Dec 7, 2018
The chairman of the storied retailer has proposed a $4.6 billion bid to save what's left of the 130-year-old chain.
A Sears store in Brooklyn, New York, in October.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images

How Toys R Us workers got the retailer's private equity owners to pay severance

Nov 23, 2018
The private equity firms Bain and KKR announced this week that they will contribute $20 million to a compensation fund for former employees of Toys R Us. The retailer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September 2017, laying off tens of thousands of workers without severance packages. And for months, those former employees have been […]
Tim Boyle/Getty Images

Remembering Sears

Oct 16, 2018
Listeners describe their favorite memories of Sears over the years.
The Sears logo is displayed on shopping carts outside of a Sears store on May 31, 2018 in Richmond, California. 
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Remembering Sears

Oct 16, 2018
Listeners describe their favorite memories of Sears over the years.
The Sears logo is displayed on shopping carts outside of a Sears store on May 31, 2018 in Richmond, California. 
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Sears teeters on the edge of bankruptcy

Oct 10, 2018
The company is more than $5.6 billion in debt.
Customers shop at Chicago's last remaining Sears store on May 3, 2018 in Chicago, Illinois.
Scott Olson/Getty Images

Online mattress startups are disrupting the market

Oct 5, 2018
The industry is crowded with internet competition, forcing one retailer into Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
People check out Serta mattresses at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images

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A view from the center of the Lehman Brothers collapse

Sep 14, 2018
Tom Russo, former general counsel at Lehman Brothers and AIG, talked to us about how the fall of Lehman Brothers could have been stopped.
Kiyoshi Ota/Getty Images

Brookstone saves airport-based stores from the chopping block. Here’s why.

Aug 2, 2018
Brookstone, the specialty retailer that sells eye masks, massage chairs and other gadgets, filed for bankruptcy protection for the second time Thursday. The company says it’s going to shut down its roughly 100 mall-based stores. They’ve become less of an attraction as more shopping moves online. The company’s 35 airport-based stores are doing much better. […]
A Brookstone store is seen at Rockefeller Center October 29, 2003 in New York City. 
Mario Tama/Getty Images

How companies like Toys R Us get approval to pay executive bonuses during bankruptcy

Apr 10, 2018
Payments, once justified as a way to retain leaders during the crisis, are now tied to performance metrics.
Leon Neal/Getty Images