A Sears-less Kmart

2004 - Kmart is bought out by Berkshire Hathaway, doing many renovations to the chain to put it back to No. 1 Department Store. BH starts the Kmart Retail Group.

November 17, 2004 - Wal-Mart announces its intention to purchase Sears for $11 billion. As a part of the merger, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. changes its name to Sears Stores, Inc. The new corporation announces that it would continue to operate stores under both the Sears and Wal-Mart brands. Around this time, Wal-Mart changes its logo from the words "WAL-MART" with a star in place of a dash to a W with the chain's name in lowercase letters below it. Wal-Mart's headquarters were relocated to Hoffman Estates, Illinois, and in 2012 the sprawling headquarters complex in Bentonville, Arkansas was acquired by the Forbes Company. No concrete plans for redevelopment of the site have been announced.

December 2004 - Kmart Retail Group acquires Blockbuster, FuncoLand, and EB Games

December 2004-May 2005 - All EB Games stores are converted to FuncoLand stores.

2005 - Sears Stores, Inc. begins renovating some Wal-Mart stores and supercenters and converting them to the Sears Essentials format, only to change them later to Sears Grands. Also, the first Kmart in Japan opens in Tokyo. Kmart's first Brazilian store opens in Rio de Janeiro also. As of 2017, Japan has 5,127 Kmart stores, while Brazil has 2,095 Kmart stores.

2006 - Kmart Retail Group buys CVS Pharmacy and all Kmart pharmacies become CVS pharmacies.

2006 - Wal-Mart started remodeling stores to the "Orange" prototype. The typical white interior of the stores was changed to orange and brown, and shelf heights were lowered to create better sightlines. The remodeled stores contain an appliance department with Kenmore Appliances and most have hardware departments that sell Craftsman tools, which prior to the merger had been exclusive to Sears stores. Some auto centers left vacant after Wal-Mart and Sears merged have been converted to Sears Auto Centers. 280 stores as of 2009 have been remodeled to this new prototype. For most of these stores, Wal-Mart retired the "Wal-Mart" star logo and replaced it with the current logo. In some of the larger stores the old logo is still in use.

2007 - Kmart opens in the UK and Germany with the first stores in London and Berlin. Super Kmart also opens in the UK with the first one opening in Milton Keynes. Nowadays, there are 7,536 Kmarts and 4,326 Super Kmarts in the UK. There are also 6,432 Kmarts in Germany as of 2017. Also, Kmart Retail Group buys Barnes & Noble and Builders Square.

2008 - Kmart Retail Group buys Ace Hardware. Also, Kmart enters Ireland with the first location opening in Dublin. Nowadays, there are 2,095 Kmarts in Ireland. Kmart Retail Group also buys The Home Depot and absorbs it completely into the Builders Square chain.

January 2009 - Kmart Retail Group buys KB Toys, renaming it to Kmart B Toys

July 2009 - Sears Stores, Inc. opened its first Sears-branded appliance store inside a Wal-Mart. The 4,000 sq ft (370 m2) store-within-a-store opened inside the former garden department of a Birmingham, Alabama, Wal-Mart. It is two-thirds the size of the appliance department in most Sears stores, but larger than the 2,500 sq ft (230 m2) appliance department in remodeled Wal-Mart stores. Also, Kmart Retail Group purchases The Children's Place and renames it Kmart Kids.

October 2009 - It was reported that Wal-Mart and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia failed to come to a new agreement. This came after Stewart made remarks on CNBC that her line at Wal-Mart had deteriorated, particularly after Wal-Mart merged with Sears.

2010 - Kmart Retail Group buys HHGregg.

December 27, 2011 - After poor holiday sales, Sears Stores announces that 100 to 120 of Sears/Wal-Mart stores would close, including the original Super Wal-Mart in Washington, Missouri (which by April 2011 had been downsized to a regular Wal-Mart store).

2012 - Kmart Retail Group buys PetSmart.

2014 - News reports indicated that Wal-Mart was closing dozens of stores across the United States. Wal-Mart's parent company Sears Stores, Inc. underwent financial distress throughout the year, sparking an unspecified number of closings to Sears and Wal-Mart locations amid vendors and lenders concerns about its liquidity. Along with store closings, measures included the sale of its Lands' End division to Kmart, selling most of its stake in Sears Canada, issuing debt and taking on loans that cumulatively put it on track to raise $1.445 billion in cash in 2014. Howard Riefs, a company spokesman who has often spoken on behalf of Wal-Mart, has said: "Sears and Wal-Mart store closures are part of a series of actions we're taking to reduce on-going expenses, adjust our asset base and accelerate the transformation of our business model."

2016 - Kmart Retail Group buys Aeropostale and closes all Aeropostale store in order to make the Aeropostale and P.S. from Aeropostale brands to be exclusive to Kmart stores.

April 2016 - Wal-Mart announced it was closing 68 stores. Wal-Mart announced in September 2016 that 64 more stores in 28 states would close by mid-December 2016.

December 2016 - 25 Wal-Mart and Sears stores were targeted for closure in early 2017.

January 2017 - Wal-Mart announced a further 78 Wal-Mart and Sears stores would close, including the first Wal-Mart location in Rogers, Arkansas.