Fog Blog Business Log:

CANADIAN MARKET PLACE WILL BECOME A BIT SMALLER AS RETAILER SEARS CANADA INC. CLOSES THE REST OF ITS BRICK AND MORTAR STORES AND LIQUIDATES THE REST OF ITS ASSETS!.......An Ontario Superior Court judge has approved a request by Sears Canada to liquidate all of its remaining stores.The retailer had applied for permission to liquidate the stores on Tuesday, and permission was granted at a court hearing on Friday.The retailer, which has been in business in Canada for more than six decades, has been trying to restructure itself under court supervision since earlier this summer.

Company chairman Brandon Stranzl had been trying to put together a bid to keep the company going while it restructured itself, but those efforts did not materialize into a plan that would have allowed the chain to continue, in the judge's estimation."I am satisfied that there is no other viable alternative," Justice Glenn Hainey said.More than 12,000 people still work at the chain's roughly 130 remaining stores across Canada, which includes 74 Sears stores, eight Sears Home stores, and 49 Sears Hometown stores, which are independently owned and operated but affiliated with the company. Workers told CBC News outside the courthouse on Friday that the news was very disheartening. "I knew it was going to happen," said Zobeida Maharaj, who had worked at the retailer for 28 years up until she was made redundant in June. "It is not a shock to many Sears employees."