Business

Sears to spin off Lands’ End

Lands’ End is being spun off from Sears — and it may get hung out to dry.

The 50-year-old catalog brand, which has unraveled steadily for the past decade under its battered parent, will be spun off into a publicly traded company, Sears said Friday.

The spinoff of Lands’ End is the latest in a slew of deals by hedge-fund billionaire Eddie Lampert to extract cash and value from Sears assets without investing in the business.

If recent history is any indication, investors may have reason to be wary of the Lands’ End deal.

In June, Orchard Supply filed for Chapter 11 less than two years after it was spun off by Sears. In court documents, the home-improvement retailer partly blamed a hefty dividend that Sears had extracted from its balance sheet.

Separately Friday, shares of Sears Hometown & Outlet Stores, spun off from Sears last year, fell 4.6 percent, to $27.89, close to 52-week lows, after the company reported a third-quarter profit drop on declining sales.

In the latter deal, Lampert pulled a $100 million cash dividend from the Hometown stores.

On Friday, Sears didn’t mention a dividend in the coming Lands’ End transaction. Shares of the new company, to be traded on the Nasdaq under the symbol “LE,” will be distributed pro rata to Sears shareholders.

Meanwhile, analysts raised fears on Friday that Lampert, who has been selling Sears’ prized assets for dividends despite a business that’s in free-fall, is spinning off the retailer’s most profitable division.

Sears revealed in a filing that Lands’ End’s profitability last year was slashed in half from 2010 levels, with Ebitda, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, plunging to $107 million, down from more than $200 million.

While Lands’ End’s ability to generate cash evaporates, its separation will deepen further the already growing losses at Sears, said Credit Suisse analyst Gary Balter.

“It appears that the long-term future of Sears will not be as a retailer.” Balter said in a research note.

In March 2012, The Post reported exclusively that Lampert had been exploring a sale of Lands’ End. Lampert later told investors that while he was not actively looking for a buyer, he was weighing a “separation” of the company.

Insiders say Lampert has welcomed suitors for Lands’ End.

Nevertheless, a deal was never struck, with prospective buyers balking on price, according to sources.