Kohl’s CEO reveals big decision on closing stores after 2025 shutdowns, sales drop

Kohl’s CEO Michael Bender has revealed that customers and staffers do not need to worry about more intense store closures this year as he focuses on turning around the flailing retailer.

In 2025, the beleaguered department store chain shuttered 27 stores across 15 states, along with an e-commerce fulfillment center in California – with then-CEO Tom Kingsbury calling the closures a “necessary” step to “support the health and future of our business.”

When Bender took the helm in November — becoming the company’s fourth full-time CEO in three years after scandal-ridden Ashley Buchanan was fired from the job — customers feared that he would plan more closures in an attempt to boost sales at the Wisconsin-based retailer.

During a post-earnings call last week, Bender told an investor who asked whether he was planning additional store closures that he “would not anticipate any sort of grand plan of saying we’re taking stores out or adding stores at this point.”

He said more than 90% of Kohl’s roughly 1,150 locations are still profitable, though the company will be looking into the “hygiene” of each store to make sure they are “positioned in the right spot” for growth.

“The focus for us is actually on optimizing what we already have, and we’ll be focused on making sure that we continue to push the store’s productivity as far as we can going forward,” he added.