Dive Summary:

• Sears Canada shares rose 12% on Friday which is the largest gain since May of 2012 following the sale of the company’s two mall-based stores in Toronto. In 2012 the company sold three other stores back to its landlord.
• Sears raised nearly $188 million from the sale and has seen completion heat up in the Canadian retail market with the entrance of U.S. competitors like Walmart, Target and Nordstrom.
• “When transactions such as this become available, we must evaluate the trading value of a store compared to the value of the proposal,” said president and CEO of Sears Canada, Calvin McDonald.

From the article:

“They’re sitting on a lot of real estate and obviously there’s some value there, but it doesn’t appear to be in the retailing side,” said Joe Cornell of Spin-Off Research, an analyst group that rates Sears Canada as a sell. “They’re trying to generate cash from asset sales and spin offs. We’ll probably see more of that.”