Sears its naming rights to the building expired in 2003 it remained the Sears Tower until early 2009. In March 2009 London-based insurer Willis Group Holdings, Ltd., was given the building's naming rights to encourage them to occupy the building. The official renaming as the "Willis Tower" took place on Thursday, July 16, 2009, during a public ceremony hosted by Willis Group Holdings. In the 1990s, the company began divesting itself of many non-retail entities, which were detrimental to the company's bottom line. Sears spun off its financial services arm which included brokerage business Dean Witter Reynolds and Discover Card. It
The Gogo Building district along the Chicago River. There are two large red brick buildings along the Chicago River just south of where the river splits, formerly known as the Butler Brothers Warehouse buildings. They were both designed for the Butler Brothers Company, a mail order company, similar to Montgomery Ward's and Sears & Roebuck at the time. The northern structure was designed by Daniel Burnham, a famous Chicago architect, with its completion date being 1913, a year after Burnham’s death. This building only stood for 7 years before being completely demolished and rebuilt exactly as it stood before by the Chicago Union