BATON ROUGE – J.C. Penny will officially close its Cortana Mall location along with 137 other stores across the country.

The company says most stores will start to liquidate on April 17. About 5,000 posititions nationwide will be impacted by the store closures, most of which will happen in June.

The Cortana Mall location is one of three stores in Louisiana that will close. The company will also close locations in Slidell and Deridder.

The closures, announced in February, represent about 13 percent to 14 percent of the company's current store count, and less than 5 percent of total annual sales.

The news came as Penney posted a profit in the fourth-quarter compared to a loss a year ago. The company posted quarterly sales of $3.96 billion, down 0.9 percent from $3.99 billion a year ago.

Revenue at stores, that were opened at least a year, was down 0.7 percent.

J.C. Penney is joining other department stores like Macy's who are shrinking its footprint amid challenges in the industry.

Click here for a full list of store closures.