it was actually more of a merger. Technically, Kmart bought Sears, but Sears footed the bill to cover Kmart's existing debt. It was a weird deal, Sears Holdings became the name, Kmart went bye bye quickly. Part of the deal was for Sears to spend it's capital, some 6 billion buying back shares of it and Kmart's stock. Which it did, but took the money for maintaining stores and inventory to do so. Essentially, it was a giant wtf cluster **** from the outset.