Kohl’s Stock Falls Amid Reports of Late Vendor Payments. What to Know.

Kohl’s stock fell 6.5% Tuesday. (Nathan Howard/Bloomberg)

Kohl’s stock fell in late-day trading Tuesday in response to a report that the company may be struggling to make vendor payments.

Kohl’s is asking some vendors for more time to settle invoices, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing people with knowledge of the situation.

A company spokeswoman told Barron’s over email that Kohl’s notified some of its vendor partners in March that the company would be updating and standardizing its payment terms in line with the retail industry at large. The update will allow Kohl’s and the vendor community to work together more efficiently, she added.

“Kohl’s regularly reviews our work to ensure we are operating as effectively and efficiently as possible,” she said.

The report caused Kohl’s shares to close 6.5% lower Tuesday despite trading about flat throughout the day, and is now down 7.1% in 2025. The stock was up 1.9% at $13.29 in after-hours trading.

Kohl’s shares rallied briefly earlier this summer after attracting the attention of meme-stock traders, who often target heavily shorted stocks in an attempt to trigger a so-called short squeeze and drive up the price. A little over 30% of Kohl’s shares are currently sold short.

Their efforts were temporarily successful, helping shares reverse the worst of their 2025 declines. But as Barron’s previously noted, the attention did little to fix Kohl’s longstanding issues, which include several years of sliding sales and lackluster profits, as well as declining cash flows. The company’s free cash flow fell to $104 million in fiscal 2024 from $591 million the prior year.

Kohl’s operating problems have been exacerbated by frequent management turnover. The company has had five chief executives in the past 10 years, each with a vision and turnaround plan that, in many cases, reversed changes made by the prior leadership team. Kohl’s is currently headed up by interim CEO Michael Bender, who stepped into the role this May after then-CEO Ashley Buchanan was terminated for cause.

The company reports fiscal second-quarter earnings Wednesday morning. Now that the dust is settling from Buchanan’s abrupt departure, investors will be listening to the call for more details about the company’s longer term strategy.

“Despite the recent leadership shakeup, we believe Kohl’s strategic direction is unlikely to shift meaningfully in the near term,” wrote Dana Telsey, CEO of Telsey Advisory Group in a research note previewing the company’s earnings report. But, she added, it will take time for Kohl’s to right its wrongs and “win back the customer.”

Write to Sabrina Escobar at sabrina.escobar@barrons.com