J.C. Penney Files for Debt Offering

J.C. Penney (JCP Quote - Cramer on JCP - Stock Picks) filed on Monday to issue up to $350 million in debt securities.

The retail chain did not say when it planned to issue the debt notes or how much interest it would pay on them. J.C. Penney plans to use the proceeds from the debt offering to fund its working capital, capital expenditures and to pay off a portion of its existing debt, the Plano, Texas-based company said in its regulatory filing.

The filing is an amendment to a shelf registration the company filed earlier this month. In the previous document, J.C. Penney cleared the way to issue up to a total of $2 billion in new debt securities.

After struggling for several years with declining sales and profits at its department-stores division, J.C. Penney's turnaround effort has been paying off recently. The company bested Wall Street expectations in its just completed fourth quarter, doubling its profits, compared with the same period a year before. While many other major retailers and department stores saw their same-stores sales decline in the fourth quarter, J.C. Penney posted comparable-store sales growth of 1.9% for its department stores.

As of last October, J.C. Penney had about $5.2 billion in long-term debt.