J.C. Penney Looks to Exit Bankruptcy Before the Holidays

J.C. Penney (OTC: JCPN.Q) says it's continuing to make progress on its planned deal to sell itself to Simon Property Group (NYSE: SPG) and Brookfield Property Group (NASDAQ: BPY), and if the courts approve its sale, the retailer should exit bankruptcy before the holiday season. J.C. Penney was in deep financial trouble well before the coronavirus pandemic, but the temporary closure of nonessential businesses this spring -- which shuttered all of its brick-and-mortar locations -- pushed the retailer over the edge. J.C. Penney has a presence in 63 of Simon's shopping malls -- about half of them -- and it's in 99 of Brookfield's. Although the landlords could conceivably have subdivided those large spaces and rented them out to multiple occupants, retailers are finding the pandemic an inopportune time to expand their physical store footprints, so Simon and Brookfield might have been hard-pressed to find new tenants.