Sears has a few different organizations under it (such as K-Mart) that might be broken up and sold to other companies instead of completely going bankrupt. That said, the outlook for Sears (steep drops in sales) and K-Mart (struggling greatly compared to competitors) are both very bad right now so it may very well file for banruptcy in 2009.
Unless the government decides to change course, I don’t see them bailing Sears out. The rational for the bank bailout was a complete national economic collapse and money crisis, and the auto-bailout was to protect all of the American car industry from going under. Although it would be very bad, the collapse of Sears would not affect the U.S. in the same way as that, and a bailout for them would also open the floodgates to have to bail out the other retailers that are struggling (which is almost all of them right now).
Just my guess is that 50/50 chance Sears/K-Mart is completely gone by the end of ‘09 and there will be no bailout for them.
Surely not….i mean,that would be just wrong…….