PBGC, Sears Agree to Safeguards for Pension Participants

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and Sears Holdings Corp. have reached an agreement in principle designed to protect participants in the retailer’s pension plan in the wake of Sears transactions involving a new real estate investment trust.

Sears closed in July on a transaction in which it sold 235 Sears and Kmart stores to the newly formed Seritage Growth Properties—as well as the company’s 50 percent interest in several joint ventures that held an additional 31 Sears Holdings properties. In the transaction, Seritage, based in Maryland, leased back to Sears “the substantial majority” of the acquired properties.

The agreement between ...