JCPenney is selling off a significant portion of its real estate nearly five years after declaring bankruptcy. In a $947 million deal, 119 JCPenney store locations will be acquired by a Boston-based private equity firm.
Copper Property CTL Pass Through Trust, established by JCPenney’s lenders during the company’s 2020 bankruptcy restructuring, announced the all-cash transaction on July 25. Onyx Partners, Ltd.’s affiliate, the buyer, is anticipated to finalize the transaction on September 8. Net-lease properties that continue to pay rent and operational expenses are included in the transaction.
In order to sell the JCPenney assets on behalf of Copper Property, property management companies Newmark and Hilco Real Estate spearheaded a comprehensive marketing campaign. According to a news release issued on July 25, Copper Property Trust announced that the Buyer has now finished its due diligence and that its deposit under the Agreement is non-refundable.
Following JCPenney’s bankruptcy, Copper Property acquired ownership of over 160 retail locations and six distribution facilities. In the meantime, JCPenney’s operational side and the remaining stores were taken over by Simon Property Group and Brookfield Asset Management Inc. Once one of the biggest retailers to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the department store giant now has about 650 sites.
The sale’s proceeds will be used to pay off JCPenney’s debts. Principal financial officer Larry Finger discussed the deal on a July 28 conference call, estimating that the total amount to be disbursed, after deducting closing costs, will be between $928 million and $932 million.
Will all of the JCPenney locations that were sold stay open?For now, yes. All 119 of the stores that were part of the deal are open right now. However, USA TODAY’s request for comment regarding Onyx Partners’ long-term plans was not answered. In the past, JCPenney closed more than 200 stores because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most recently, in May 2025, seven store closures that had been announced in February 2025 were completed.
Which JCPenney locations are being offered for sale? View the map and listNewmark claims that the entire JCPenney Retail Portfolio had 121 properties spread over 35 states, with the most notable being 21 in Texas and 19 in California, with a combined total area of 16.05 million square feet.
According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, two other properties in Florida and Pennsylvania were sold to the Simon and Brookfield group earlier this year for $21 million.
