Sears Holdings Corp. has quietly put up its Lands' End brand on the block, and Chairman Edward Lampert is in talks with a few potential private-equity firms on the sale, according to a New York Post report. The company is said to have hired Goldman Sachs to assist in the sale.
Sears is looking to raise as much as $2 billion through the sale, but bankers expect the sale to fetch between $1.2 billion and $1.6 billion, less than what Sears paid for it. Sears acquired the brand in May 2002 for $1.86 billion in cash, and Lampert inherited it when he merged Sears with Kmart discount chain in 2005.
Lampert controls roughly 61 percent of Sears through his hedge fund ESL Investments Inc.
