Lampert investors demand Sears returns

Eddie Lampert is losing more than Sears and Kmart shop🐓pers this year.

The secretive and successful Wall Street tycoon is being forced to return billions of dollars to disgruntled clients of his ESL Investments, the shrinking hedge fund through which Lamper🍰t has been dismantling Sears Holdings.

The company’s stock traded as high as $169 a share in 2007, but according to an insider close to the situation, many of ESL’s clients have been furious about Sears’ results, which have sparked a continued tailspin in shares.

Onꦇ Thursday, shares lost 1.9 percent to close at $49.98.

💛“They believed Eddie knew Sears was overvalued at close to $200 a share and raised $5 billion base༺d on that,” the source told The Post.

Accordingly, the disgusted investors “were going to redeem the moment they could,” the source sai♍d.

ESL disclosed this week 💖it was forced to cough up 7.42 million Sears shares worth $471 million this year to meet client redemptions — a stake that has since lost a fifth of its value.

Experꦅts said stock-based “redemptions in kind” are a tactic to aꩵvoid raising cash by selling stock, leaving clients stuck with any downside.

“If I did that, there would be people at my door with baseball bats,” said David Tawil, co-founder of New York hedge fund Maglan Capital. “He doesn’t 🍌care how much people hate him. He did the right thing for hi🐻mself and his remaining investors.”

A spokesman for ESL declined to comment.

On Thursday, WSJ.com reported that Goldman Sachs clients who poured $3.5 billion into ESL in 2007 have demanded their cash back following the expiration of a five-year lock-up. Most of the cash has been🔯 returned, according to the report.

As reported by The Post, 🔴Lamp𒐪ert has been selling off valuable assets of Sears Canada, taking hefty dividends, with plans to liquidate the chain.