Sears Canada filed for bankruptcy protection on Thursday, saying 44 of its 200-plus store locations will shutter and nearly 3,000 employees will be laid off at the stores and at its Toronto headquarters.

The retailer said it hopes to exit bankruptcy protection “as soon as possible in 2017,” as it blamed the equivalent of a Chapter 11 filing in Canada on a cash crunch, saying “legacy components of its business are preventing it from making further progress.”

Spun off from Chicago-based Sears Holdings in 2012, Sears Canada operates as a separate company with its own listed stock.

Those shares were priced below $1 on the Toronto Stock Exchange Thursday.

Sears CEO Eddie Lampert’s hedge fund ESL Investments owns 45 percent of Sears Canada shares, while Sears Holdings owns 12 percent of the Canadian company.

The Canadian operations blamed its woes on “continued liquidity” pressures” that have prevented it from “making further progress in its brand reinvention” and restructuring.

Shares of Sears Holdings were up by 3.4 percent to $6.67 in morning trading.