TORON­TO — Sears Cana­da re­ceived court ap­proval Fri­day to liq­ui­date all its re­main­ing stores, putting 12,000 em­ploy­ees out of a job.

On­tario Su­pe­ri­or Court heard that de­spite weeks of dis­cus­sion, no vi­able buy­er has been found.

Jus­tice Glenn Hainey ap­proved Sears Cana­da's mo­tion to liq­ui­date its re­main­ing 130 stores, and said he was sat­is­fied there was no vi­able al­ter­na­tive.

The em­bat­tled re­tail­er sought pro­tec­tion from its cred­i­tors in June.

A buy­er-group led by Sears Cana­da ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Bran­don Stran­zl had been in dis­cus­sions to pur­chase the re­tail­er and con­tin­ue to op­er­ate it. But a lawyer for Sears Cana­da told the court that al­though it had re­mained op­ti­mistic, no ex­e­cutable trans­ac­tion ex­ists.

That job-loss tal­ly doesn't in­clude the 2,900 re­duc­tions Sears Cana­da had an­nounced in June, with the clo­sure of 20 full-line lo­ca­tions, 15 Sears Home stores, 10 Sears Out­let and 14 Sears Home­town lo­ca­tions.

Lit­i­ga­tors for a group of lenders who have pro­vid­ed debtor-in-pos­ses­sion fi­nanc­ing to Sears Cana­da to keep it afloat had pushed to en­ter in­to a liq­ui­da­tion agree­ment by Oct. 7 at the lat­est. The lenders want­ed ap­proval no lat­er than Oct. 13, in or­der to liq­ui­date be­fore the cru­cial hol­i­day sea­son and max­i­mize val­ue.

The re­tail­er was spun off from Sears Hold­ings in 2012. (AP)