Sears is hanging on for dear life as the company agreed to a January 14 auction Tuesday, TheWall Street Journal reports. The auction is dependent on a $121 million deposit from former CEO Edward Lampert due by tomorrow afternoon. Sears originally rejected a bid from Lampert to save the 126-year-old company, setting the veteran retailer on a path to liquidation. Through his hedge fund, Lampert put forward a bid of $4.4 billion to buy Sears out of bankruptcy, but the company deemed the offer insufficient. One of the biggest unresolved issues was covering the fees and vendor payments it owes, making the company “administratively insolvent.” A liquidation could still salvage pieces of the company, like its home services business. The storied retailer, which also owns Kmart, has more than 50,000 employees. The company first opened in 1893 as Sears, Roebuck & Co., and was the nation’s largest retailer at one time.
