Posted on 04/18/2019 11:14:04 AM PDT by Red Badger
Loss mitigation executives are tasked with mitigating only certain losses for certain people or groups. Sort of like a bankruptcy judge for hire on a recon mission. They would sell off any asset they quietly can for reasons never truly disclosed. It’s what they were brought on to do.
Can you imagine, in the 1990s when Amazon was just an idea, had Sears gone online, it would have been the modern day version of the Sears Catalog that spread commerce through out the United States.
Sears today would be the largest company in the world.
...
Sears partnered with IBM to create Prodigy, so they had a leg up.
Prodigy is also where FR was started, IIRC.
Just another Romney style hedge fund looting and raiding of a company. Nothing to see here.
It's rather an interesting case study. Sears started as the first "on-line" shopper (if you will) with catalog sales. I remember when they decided to do away with their catalog. They abandoned the business model that made them a success. Had they expanded catalog, there might never have been an Amazon.
Lampert never had any intensions of K-Mart surviving....keep in Mind it was K-Mart that bought Sears.
So, what was illegal about stripping and selling assets for the benefit of stockholders?
One wonders if bankrupt Sears has the cash to fund the lawsuit?
So many bad business decisions were made. Corporate kept looking for reasons to cut costs at every store. Fewer workers and rundown stores - how is that a good business model?
I always liked their Kenmore appliances but in the last 20 years, their prices were no longer competitive so this consumer went elsewhere.
Sears...a day late and a dollar short.
I hate it. Sears was an American icon.
So, that makes it doubly the result of very very poor management.
I suspect, an outsider was brought in by the BODs that put the company on a different trajectory. These managers were fat dumb and happy with the status quo.
I seem to recall that wasn’t Sears at one time selling Allstate Insurance?
They had absolutely terrible fashions, and the displays of new clothing was horrendous.
The employees were still loyal, but without direction and the morale low, as they hired a lot of retirees.
Terrible terrible.
BTW, what happened to IBM? Maybe there’s the problem there. They partnered with another company that lost its way.
Had they gone online to sell their products, an outreach of the old catalog, the network of stores would have the products to the person’s door within hours.
I recall visiting my grandparents in Idaho as a kid. They’d get this huge Sears Catalog seasonally, I mean huuuuuuuuuuge, and they’d go threw it an order things.
Somehow they would find a way to get there to their farm.
They really had a monopoly on things with that catalog.
too bad, and very sad that their management and BODs were clueless as to what their core business was.
Other than Craftsman and Kenmore their products were sub-par.
You can get cheap clothes for cheaper at the W store.
I believe Dewalt/Black & Decker owns the brand now - Lowes is apparently their chosen showroom at this time. I think the new owners have mentioned a plan to return some of the Craftsman manufacturing to the U.S., but for now it looks like the old Sears suppliers (wherever) are shipping to the new owner.
If they can bring quality up a bit without sending prices through the roof, I think the brand will do pretty well - it still has far better name recognition than the newer "big box" brands like Kobalt.
They should have done something about that years ago, while the looting was in progress, rather than wait until the inevitable result.
It’s sad, Sears, Monkey Ward’s & Jacques Pennet were staples of life in the Podunk Midwest. Now, pretty much just fading memories.
(But I’d still like one of the train sets from the Christmas catalog, with the scenery and all the stuff. Those looked cool.)
Black and Decker/Stanley bought the brand, no? Ace Hardware sells Craftsman also (deceptive advertising by Lowe’s).
[Other than Craftsman and Kenmore their products were sub-par.
You can get cheap clothes for cheaper at the W store.]
They did have online shopping, with stores shipping out packages or holding them for pickup. Not sure when they introduced their online shopping, but they must not have been competitive, plus the rundown stores were a problem.
If true it looks like Lampert did a number of questionable deals in disposing of assets to benefit himself and others.
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