Sears Seeks Courtapproval Of Stalking Horse Asset Purchase Deal With Service.com

(RTTNews) - Sears Holdings Corp (SHLD) announced that it has sought court approval of a "stalking horse" asset purchase agreement with Service.com to acquire the Sears Home Improvement business or SHIP in court-supervised sale process.

Under deal, Service.com intends to purchase SHIP for about $60 million in cash. Holdings anticipates that a sale will be completed by early January 2019.

Holdings intends to implement bid procedures to allow other qualified bidders the opportunity to submit competing bids through a court-supervised sale process. Interested bidders are encouraged to contact Lazard Frères & Co. LLC. The company requested that the Court consider the proposed bid procedures on November 15 at 10:00 a.m. ET.

"The sale of SHIP is an important step for Sears Holdings as we continue working to achieve a comprehensive restructuring," said Robert A. Riecker, Chief Financial Officer and member of the Office of the Chief Executive.

"Service.com is excited about the possibility of combining with SHIP," said Sandy Kronenberg, Chief Executive Officer of Service.com. "This would not have been feasible without the support of Peter Karmanos' MadDog Ventures."

The transaction was approved by the Company's Restructuring Committee and the auction process and final agreement will be subject to the approval of the Court.