U.S. retailers face a wave of store closings, bankruptcies and takeovers as holiday sales shape up to be the worst in 40 years.

Retailers will close 12,000 stores in 2009, according to Howard Davidowitz, chairman of retail consulting and investment-banking firm Davidowitz & Associates Inc. in New York. And after more than a dozen companies sought bankruptcy protection this year, more will succumb in February, when they file financial reports, said Burt Flickinger.

"Youll see department stores, specialty stores, discount stores, grocery stores, drugstores, major chains either multi-regionally or nationally, go out," Flickinger, managing director of Strategic Resource Group, a retail-industry consulting firm in New York, said Monday. "There are a number that are real causes for concern."

Sales at stores open at least a year probably dropped as much as 2 percent in November and December, the International Council of Shopping Centers said on Dec. 23, lowering the projection from a 1 percent decline. Either way, it would be the largest drop since at least 1969, when the trade group started tracking data.

Consumers spent at least 20 percent less on womens clothing, electronics and jewelry during November and December, according to data from SpendingPulse. Ann Taylor Stores Corp., Talbots Inc. and Sears Holdings Corp. are among chains shuttering underperforming locations.

Retailers fourth-quarter earnings may fall 19 percent on average, the seventh consecutive quarterly decline, according to Ken Perkins, president of Retail Metrics, a Swampscott, Mass.-based consulting firm. Discounts of 70 percent off or more by Macys Inc., Ann Taylor Stores Inc. and other retailers failed to prevent a spending drop of as much as 4 percent during the final two months of the year, according to data from SpendingPulse. Consumers are trained for sales, according to Patti Freeman Evans, an analyst at Jupiter Research in New York.

"The situation is not going to right itself in January; its going to be a long while that discountings going to be around," said Evans. "Consumers are going to get used to it, and its going to very difficult for retailers to move forward in a full-price mode."

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