Sears Holdings is planning to shut 40 more stores early next year.

The new closures are in addition to the 142 unprofitable stores the department store chain is already expected to close toward the end of 2018. When it filed for bankruptcy in early October, the company had roughly 700 Sears and Kmart stores still open for business. It's shuttered hundreds of locations over the years, including spinning off about 240 stores in 2015 to form real estate entity Seritage.

The company said liquidation sales at the 40 locations set to close in February will start late next week. The accompanying Sears Auto stores are also expected to be shut.

The closures at malls and shopping centers are piling up, with Bon-Ton, Toys R Us and other major retailers also recently going bankrupt and shutting stores. Mattress Firm is, meanwhile, planning to close more than 200 locations across the country, as retailers such as Barnes & Noble, Gap and Lowe's work to trim their brick-and-mortar footprints.

U.S. mall owners have said they see the Sears closures as an opportunity to bring in more profitable tenants, though renovations will take time and money.