Kohl’s reports $272M profit in 2025 despite sales decline

The holiday season delivered for Kohl’s Corp. as the company reported a profit of $125 million for the final quarter of 2025, compared to $48 million during the same time the previous year.

However, sales declined 3.9% in the quarter, continuing the company’s streak of lower sales that goes back years.

Just under a year ago, the company announced the closure of 27 stores across the country, including the location in the Town Square Mall in Boise. The company still has several other Idaho locations in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho Falls, Meridian, Nampa and Twin Falls.

For the full year, Kohl’s reported a profit of $272 million compared to $186 million in 2024, and operating cash flow of $1.4 billion compared to $648 million in 2024.

Kohl’s CEO Michael Bender said the company is “ending 2025 in a stronger position than we started.”

“Over the past year, our efforts have been focused on resetting our foundation. This focus is intended to stabilize the business and strengthen our operational ability to build for a stronger future,” Bender said in a statement.

“In 2025, we made meaningful progress, despite our Q4 topline coming in softer than our expectations. We were able to manage the business with discipline, deliver improved earnings, and generate meaningful cash flow, all of which helped us strengthen our balance sheet.”

For 2026, Kohl’s expects sales to be flat, or down roughly 2%, which if those projections are accurate, would be a welcome shift in performance.

Twelve months ago, Kohl’s was closing 27 stores across 15 states and eliminated roughly 10% of its positions at its headquarters in Menomonee Falls.

At that time Ashley Buchanan had just taken over as the new CEO. He was only in the job for a few months when he was fired in May for failing to disclose a conflict of interest regarding a personal relationship he had with a potential contractor.

Bender was immediately appointed to interim-CEO and then was named full-time CEO in November.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Kohl’s reports $272 million profit in 2025 despite sales decline.” Reporting by Ricardo Torres, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, through USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect. Idaho Business Review staff contributed to this story.