Posted on 02/23/2012 10:31:44 PM PST by Steelfish
FEBRUARY 24, 2012 In Retreat, Sears Set to Unload Stores
[Subscriber Content Preview] BY MIGUEL BUSTILLO AND DANA MATTIOLI
After seven years of trying to rebuild the iconic retailer Sears, hedge-fund manager Edward S. Lampert reversed course on Thursday, announcing that Sears Holdings Corp. will unload more than 1,200 stores in an effort to raise up to $770 million of much-needed cash.
Many on Wall Street interpreted the move as the beginning of the breakup of the company. Sears on Thursday reported a loss of more than $3 billion for 2011, and same-store sales have fallen for six straight years. The company's shares, which fell below $30 last month, rose almost 19% on Thursday to $61.80 on news of ..
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
No one goes to the mall anymore.
Their home service sucks.
More evidence that the economy is roaring back, according to Obama.
No customers do. Lots of black youth do however.
Gonna be a run on Craftsman tools.
This century’s Sears & Roebuck is Amazon.com. Sears can’t compete with Amazon and Overstock for non-brick & mortar sales, and it can’t compete with Walmart for in-store sales. It had a good run, but it’s over.
Means nothing. Sears has essentially been little more than a real estate play for years now.
OTOH, I have my own theory about the downfall of Sears and Wards, and others. They used to carry guns, ammo etc, and good well made, if somewhat plain, clothing. Then they went all "high fashion", with glitz in the store displays, and eliminated those yucky guns.. and started their long goodby.
Both Wards and Sears once had their own house brand of firearm and ammunition as well as fishing and other "outdoors" type supplies. Western Field and J.C. Higgens respectively. The nicer models from Sears were called "Ted Williams" models.
Let’s see if my math skills are still OK for a 59 year old retiree. 1200 stores; probably 200 employees per store, (part time and full time, commission, hourly and salaried). That would be 240,000 lay offs nationwide. And don’t forget the seasonal employees that now won’t get the summer/winter work. Way to go Barry.
Sears was not always in the mall, and many of their newer stores, in conjunction with K-mart, are not in malls, more often they are out buildings in large strip centers. Might have stores such as Academy Sport, Sports Authority, Target, and lots of eating places, nearby.
I was in a mall just before Christmas that was packed... but the Sears store did not have many customers in it.
When these quarter of a million people apply for unemployment we'll be told that the unemployment rate miraculously went down to 7.9%.
Why do I get the sick feeling that Bain Capital is just waiting in the lurches???
Just looked at Sears Holdings. Sears, Roebuck & Co. has 2700 stores, so closing 1200 of them is a big chunk.
Strangely enough, I’m wearing a Hawaiian shirt from Sears right now. Sad to see them slip away.
The Kardashian Kollection at Sears
http://www.sears.com/shc/s/dap_10153_12605_DAP_kardashiankollection?sid=ISx20070515x00001a&psid=23x1754605
And don’t forget the Sears Auto, Sears Optical, Sears Photo Studio, Sears Home Improvement and Sears Hearing Aid Centers employees. Mrs. 2ndDivisionVet is the manager of a Sears Optical Store. That’ll be the final nail in our coffin.
This is the end of the old catalog days, just another event in the evolution of capitalism. Businesses that have outlived their business model must die so that fresh thinkers can thrive.
I have loved and bought many Sears products. The Sears and especially Craftsman names are still good well recognized names. There are some companies which are sitting on a pile of cash, what somebody must do is snatch up the name and promote it as the “American Made” alternative to all the junk out there. Sell off all the real estate, pump up the internet sales.
It could be done if done right (Hank Meijer are you listening?)
That's cause their prices are always so high.
I'll pay more for Craftsman tools, but for everything else their quality is no better than what is available for 80% of the cost elewhere.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of people./sarc
“More evidence that the economy is roaring back, according to Obama.”
Yes, I’m hearing these pundits talking on the radio about the employment situation getting better - what a hoax. It’s like listening to “war of the Worlds” on the radio. A friend of mine is having his whole area closed and their work outsourced; these are high-paying financial sector jobs, and nothing will bring them back. I hope he and his family are OK; they were frugal while he was raking in the money, and he has already taken his children out of private schools.
Nobody in his “circle”, or in the millions of “circles” out there with similar stories, can be convinced this is anything but horrible. Obama is finished.
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