Posted on 03/22/2017 6:40:41 AM PDT by Hojczyk
Sears Holdings, once the largest U.S. retailer, warned on Tuesday about its ability to continue as a going concern after years of losses and declining sales.
"Our historical operating results indicate substantial doubt exists related to the company's ability to continue as a going concern," Sears said in the annual report for the fiscal year ended Jan. 28.
Shares of the retailer were down almost 12 percent in premarket trade on Wednesday.
The company said an inability to generate additional liquidity might limit its access to new merchandise or its ability to procure services. Continued operating losses also could restrict access to new funds under its domestic credit agreement, according to the filing.
The warning comes less than six weeks after the company announced what it called the "next phase of its strategic transformation," in which it hoped this year to reduce costs by $1 billion and cut its debt and pension obligations by at least $1.5 billion. Sears also is considering selling some of its businesses, such as the Kenmore appliances and DieHard car battery brands.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
Captain Obvious is gonna be a busy man today.
Sears is dead, they spun off Craftsman and Kenmore as stand alone companies...
“Sears is dead, they spun off Craftsman and Kenmore as stand alone companies...”
Unless I’m misunderstanding your terminology, Stanley now owns Craftsman.
Only reason I continued to shop at Sears as long as I did.
It’s a shame. Sears was the great all-American department store for well over a century and now it will just fall apart. When I was a kid we shopped theer all the time because they had good products at a good price and they had great service.
They should just change their name to Montgomery Wards and be done with it.
Sears will be used in some future class on how companies fail.
After over a hundred years in the mail order business they allowed a company like AMAZON to jump in and grab the market they should have been the leader in.
Years ago I bought a black and decker weed wacker from Sears. Every so often I need to replace the string cartridge. In the past I had to remember to drive by sears, go in, find what I want, wait in line and make a purchase. Could take as much as 30 minutes.
Now I go to Amazon, find what I want, one click and it is done. Delivered within two days. Total time perhaps 3 minutes.
Any wonder the box store is dying?
Would be disappointed to see this long lived American brand bite the dust. But then again, other than a lawn tractor purchased about 10 years ago... don’t think I’ve bought anything from them since. Similarly, the ton of Craftsman tools I own have been so reliable that many were purchased 20-30 years ago.
Sounds like they need more than closing a few stores. They need to reboot what the company will be (products, markets, channels) and likely need to do so under Ch. 11.
I park near Sears because the lot is always wide open there, and cut through the store on the way to other parts of the mall. The local store been dead as a doornail for years. It’s like I am in the store by myself. There are things I would buy there (clothes, etc.) if I had the need, but I usually don’t. Probably the last thing I bought at Sears was a car battery from their long-gone auto service. They had atrocious, slow, half-@ssed service and “found” problems my car didn’t have.
They might, you know, at least, try.
By the way, selling off your profitable divisions and keeping your failing ones is not usually a good way to get back to financial health.
Yes, I used to buy clothes at stores but nobody stocks for tall people. Indeed, it was kind of fun to walk around Sears sometimes just looking at stuff.
Meanwhile, Wal Mart in every case I know of is a dump.
First they sold Craftsman and now they’re selling Kenmore. The only two reasons I’ve set foot in Sears in the past 20 years, both gone.
Speaking of Walmart, how could anyone have thought that Sears merging with Kmart was a good idea? If you think Walmarts are dumps try visiting a Kmart (if you can even find one that hasn’t closed). They make Walmart look positively pristine.
Eddie Lampert simply couldn’t stay ahead of the curve. He thought selling off the Real Estate would generate vast returns. Wrong - mall R/E is plummeting in value faster than Sears stock price.,
as another freeper noted - Sears dominated mail order. They coulda creamed Amazon.
It’s going to be a fascinating B school case one day.
Sears/Kmart will become a classic in MBA schools of what not to do to have a successful business and keep it successful.
They destroyed the trust in our generation 7o/80 ages with crappy appliances and jerks posing as repairmen.
Also, our adult children and their friends in their late 40’s/early 50’s were loyal customers re Kenmore and Craftsman. Now, they don’t buy anything from Sears.
Somehow Sears survived in spite of the above. The final nail in their coffine is the ability to buy items on line for less than what they charge. Besides that incentive, not having to put up with a highschool dropout clerk who hated their job and any customers asking for service.
There was a Sears distribution center next to where I work. It was closed and demolished in the last few months. The place used to have nice signs and a well paved/Lit lot, 20 years ago. Before it closed, it looked almost like something from The Walking Dead.
I agree, but I think you missed a step, their Internet site. People like me would rather order directly from Sears and avoid Amazon. But have you tried the Sears web site? It’s totally infuriating when I try it, which makes it less than useless. If it were just useless, I might keep trying it.
When I was a kid in the 50s, living overseas, we depended on the huge Sears catalog. That’s how Sears began, reaching out long distances to customers. In it’s first years, they would sell all of the parts to build a house.
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