Sears Roebuck Co

Sears, Roebuck & Co. customers fell further behind on credit card payments in the fourth quarter, raising concerns the retailer's earnings may be lower than expected. Hoffman Estates, Ill.-based Sears wrote off 9.23% of $9.6 billion in credit card charges in December, up from 7.61% in August and significantly above the 6.66% industry average, said Amber Eastman, a credit card analyst at Fitch IBCA Inc.

A federal jury in New Hampshire has awarded a woman $1 million in a sex discrimination lawsuit against Sears, Roebuck & Co. Jeanie Boisvert worked as a greeter and dispatcher at the Sears Auto Center in Manchester, N.H., for 14 years before she was laid off in February 1993 during a reorganization of the retailer's auto departments. Boisvert's lawyer, Michael McGrath, said she was supposed to have been considered for rehiring, but discovered in 1994 she would not be.

Sears, Roebuck & Co. launched its first hostile takeover bid, a week after talks to buy the rest of its majority-owned Maxserv Inc. customer service support operation broke down. The nation's second-largest retailer launched a tender offer of $7 a share for the 35.6% of Maxserv it does not already own, which values the proposed transaction at about $27 million.

Sears, Roebuck & Co. agreed to sell its Western Auto Supply car-parts chain to Advance Auto Parts for $175 million and a 40% stake in the closely held retailer. Advance, based in Roanoke, Va., operates 915 stores in 17 states. It had fiscal 1997 sales of $848.1 million. The purchase will put Advance, which operates in the Southeast, in markets in the Northeast, Midwest and Southwest. Western Auto, based in Hoffman Estates, Ill.

Sears, Roebuck & Co. plans to buy 18 former Montgomery Ward department stores and 10 auto centers from the bankrupt retailer. The stores to be purchased include one in Huntington Beach and three in Northern California. Sears plans to convert four of the Ward's locations to Great Indoors stores, Sears' remodeling and decorating retail concept. Fourteen of the former Ward's locations will be converted to Sears stores, with Sears Auto Centers attached to three of those stores.

Sears, Roebuck & Co. formally entered into a $290-million nationwide settlement stemming from the retailer's illegal debt collection practices. The settlement with all 50 states, filed in Boston's U.S. Bankruptcy Court, affect an estimated 146,000 consumers nationwide. Hoffman Estates, Ill.-based Sears took a pretax $475-million charge in the second quarter in anticipation of the settlements, spokesman Jan Drummond said.

Sears, Roebuck & Co. agreed to plead guilty to fraud and pay a $60-million fine for illegally pursuing debts from credit card customers who had filed for bankruptcy, the retailer said. Under a deal with the federal government, Sears' Bankruptcy Recovery Management Services unit will admit guilt to one count of bankruptcy fraud. Hoffman Estates, Ill.

Sears Canada Inc. snapped up the most famous name in Canadian retailing, for $20 million in cash Monday, saying it might keep the T. Eaton Co. banner alive via the Internet and catalog business, but probably not in a store format. Toronto-based Sears Canada, which is 55% owned by Sears, Roebuck & Co. of Hoffman Estates, Ill., said it would assume ownership of the Eaton name, trademark, Web site and eight stores across the country, including three in Toronto.

Sears, Roebuck & Co. announced an addition to its Web site that the retailer hopes will have shoppers coming to see its harder side. Expanding on a parts service that had been available by phone, the company launched PartsDirect, which makes available on the Web site 4.2 million appliance parts from 400 manufacturers.

A federal grand jury in Illinois is investigating auto battery sales by Sears, Roebuck & Co. and its former chief supplier of the batteries, Exide Corp., according to a subpoena obtained by Bloomberg News. The prospect of criminal charges stemming from the battery sales comes months after the companies paid $3.7 million to settle civil claims by Florida's attorney general that they sold used auto batteries to consumers as new.