On January 5, 2017, Sears Holding Corporation announced that Stanley Black & Decker had purchased the Craftsman brand (link). The devil, however, is in the details.Stanley will pay $525 million at closing, $250 million at the end of year three, and annual payments on new sales through year 15 (2.5% through 2020, 3% through January 2023, and 3.5% thereafter).
In return, Stanley acquired the "rights to develop, manufacture and sell Craftsman-branded products in non-Sears Holdings retail, industrial and online sales channels across the U.S. and in other countries" (emphasis added). Sears-Holding meanwhile "will continue to offer Craftsman-branded products, sourced from existing suppliers through its current retail channels via a perpetual license from Stanley Black & Decker". Thus, Stanley basically purchased the right to sell Craftsman products to non-Sears Holdings related entities, which should be a large market as less than 10% of Craftsman sales currently are through such entities (link).
It would be interesting to see the trademark license agreement portion of the sale to see how much "quality control" Stanley will be able to exercise over Sears.
- Henry Park
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