Sears to close 46 more stores
Sears Holdings Corp. is closing another 13 Kmart stores and 33 Sears stores as sales shrink and losses grow.
The ailing company said Thursday that liquidation sales at the 46 unprofitable stores marked for closure will start Aug. 30, and the stores will close in November. None of the stores to be closed are in Tennessee, but Sears is closing at Cumberland Mall in Atlanta and at the 100 Mall in Brunswick, Georgia.
The move comes as Sears is considering a bid from CEO Eddie Lampert’s hedge fund ESL Investments to acquire its jewel Kenmore appliances from the company for $400 million. The company has put others of its famous brands on the block before.
In January, Sears had said it was closing 100 stores and added another 100 stores to the closing list in May.
Sears has about 894 remaining stores, down from about 1,000 at the end of last year. The number of stores peaked in 2012 at 4,000, which included the Sears Canada division that was later spun off.
VW car sharing starts in Berlin
Volkswagen says it’s launching an all-electric car sharing service in Berlin using its battery powered Golf and Up! models as it seeks to build a business serving people in big cities who don’t own cars.
The company said Thursday that it planned to expand its We Share project to big cities in Europe and North America by 2020.
Volkswagen said it would deploy 2,000 of the compact cars in the first months of next year to build visibility and ensure that there are enough cars available that customers could always find one near them. It said Berlin was ideal because it was big and densely populated.
Volkswagen and other global automakers are investing in new business models that offer cars as something to be used when needed rather than owned.
Mortgage rates fall 30-year at 4.51 percent
Long-term U.S. mortgage rates fell this week for the third consecutive week, yet they remain significantly higher than a year ago.
Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac says the average rate on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages ticked down to 4.51 percent from 4.53 percent last week. A year ago, the average was 3.86 percent. The interest charged on home loans have been running at their highest levels in seven years, although they remain below the long term historic average.
The average rate on 15-year, fixed-rate loans fell to 3.98 percent this week from 4.01 percent last week.
Google takes on Iranian attacks
Google announced Thursday it had disabled dozens of YouTube channels and other accounts linked to a state-run Iranian broadcaster for a political influence campaign.
The security firm FireEye, which alerted tech companies to some of the suspicious activity, said in a report this week that the overall operation originates from Iran and promotes Iranian interests to audiences in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Google said its own forensic research shows the accounts were set up by people associated with the state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, or IRIB.
The broadcaster didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request for comment Thursday. FireEye said it’s a sign that it’s no longer just Russia conducting disguised political influence campaigns.
On Tuesday, Facebook – which also works with FireEye – revealed that it had removed 652 suspicious pages, groups and accounts linked to Russia and Iran. Twitter made a similar announcement shortly thereafter.