Kohl's Considers Real Estate Sales After Acquisition Talks Fall Through
Just ahead of the holiday weekend, Kohl's Corp. said that talks with Vitamin Shoppe owner Franchise Group had come to an end without any deal for the sale of the department store chain to that company.
The continuation of Kohl's as a standalone company again raises the prospect that the retailer might execute sale-leaseback deals on its properties to bring in much-needed cash, a move the company has previously resisted on a large scale, CNBC reports.
In announcing the end of negotiations, however, Kohl's acknowledged in a statement that it is "reevaluating monetization opportunities for portions of the company’s real estate portfolio."
As of the beginning of 2022, the retailer owned 410 of its locations, leased 517 others and operated ground leases for 238 more stores.
Activist investors have been pushing Kohl’s to sell off some of the sites that it owns, The Real Deal reports.
Before the pandemic, the company realized a gain of $127M by selling and leasing back e-commerce fulfillment and distribution centers that it owned in San Bernardino, California.
Kohl's also lowered its sales forecast for the second quarter on Friday, citing "inflationary pressures on the consumer."
The company now expects sales to be down "high-single digits for Q2, as compared to our prior expectations of down low-single digits relative to last year."
