Sears Magnolia in Benson, NC $6,488.00
Posted on 03/22/2017 6:47:54 AM PDT by Red Badger
After years of huge losses and store closings, the future is officially in doubt for Sears and Kmart.
Sears Holdings, the holding company for the two iconic retail brands, warned investors late Tuesday that it can’t promise it will stay in business.
It included the language in its annual report while insisting it might still turn things around.
“Our historical operating results indicate substantial doubt exists related to the company’s ability to continue as a going concern,” said the statement.
Sears Holdings said it can’t be sure it can raise the cash it needs through loans and debt financing. The company owes $4.2 billion, up from about $3 billion a year ago.
The company lost $2.2 billion in the fiscal year ending in January and has not turned an annual profit since 2010. Its losses since then total $10.4 billion.
Sears Holdings said its ability to sell assets, such as stores and store leases, could be limited because it needs those assets to pay for pension plans. In January, Sears sold its Craftsman brand of tools to Stanley Black & Decker. It is looking to sell Kenmore appliances and Diehard auto parts.
Sears Holdings has been in trouble almost since the 2005 merger that joined the two department store brands.
At the start of 2006, it had 3,400 U.S. stores and 370 more in Canada that it has since sold. By the end of this January, it had only 1,400 stores left, all in the United States. The company still has 140,000 employees, but that too is down sharply from the 355,000 it had in 2006.
Even that doesn’t tell the full picture of the decline.
Sears was once the nation’s largest retailer and business employer, both the Walmart and Amazon of its time. Its groundbreaking catalog business was how many Americans learned to shop from home for a large variety of items they wanted.
And it developed an extensive store network that helped furnish homes as Americans moved to the suburbs after World War II. It also caused trouble for small, locally owned shops.
The company at one time grew to include not just the retail business but a bank, a brokerage, a real estate company and what was then the world’s tallest building, the Sears Tower, for its Chicago headquarters.
But Sears began to suffer from competition from low-price competitors such as Walmart, and big-box stores such as Home Depot. It lost its place in the Dow Jones index of the nation’s most important companies in 1999.
Then came growing competition from Amazon and other online retailers. Analysts said Sears Holdings did little to invest in either the Sears or Kmart brand, instead trying to cut its way back to profitability by trimming advertising and closing stores.
It announced plans to close 150 more stores in January, and its stock hit a post-merger low in February. Then the stock rebounded when the company announced a deal with creditors to borrow $140 million more and cut at least $1 billion in operating costs a year, along with reducing its debt and pension obligations by $1.5 billion.
The “going concern” warning sent shares down 5% in pre-market trading Wednesday.
Amen and applause for Post #28.
Why my wife was pregnant with our first child, Montgomery Wards was going out of business, she also had a friend that worked there, between the clearance discounts and her friends employee discounts we bought everything we could possibly need for the child and then some for pennies on the dollar.
That was back in late 96 early 97
Who remembers Prodigy? Who has a Discover Card in their wallet?
I do. and I do......................
woopsie doodle- talk about a Freudian slip
Yes, I got some good deals on some furniture.
“Those three things were the core of the company. Time to pull the plug”
Yep, how do you sell off the only true assets and think you can make a go of it. All Sears has left is the Real Estate if they actually own their Store properties. And I suspect that has declined somewhat.
10 years ago the should have wound down sales of everything others than Craftsman / Kenmore products and gone with much smaller stores...Tools and appliances only.
I had a Craftsman 21” lawnmower, the red kind with a briggs engine, not the gray kind, that lasted 25 years. I bought a new one virtually identical and the price was the same, $200.
Sears tried to do that locally with their “Sears Hardware” chain of stores. They had a great tool selection and significant floor space for appliances. But the appliances and particularly accessories were priced much higher than Lowe’s. For example, a refrigerator water filter that cost $55 at Sears Hardware only cost $40 at Lowe’s. The Sears Hardware was generally empty while the Do It Center hardware across the street was packed. I know all the staff at the Do It by name and some are family friends. I didn’t know anyone at Sears Hardware.
The Sears Hardware closed up last month.
No kidding. We bought a nicer Kenmore dishwasher at the Sears store in Cody two years ago and a week ago it died. Something to do with the computer than runs the machine.
By design the Kenmore took THREE HOURS to wash a load of dishes. Ugh.
We replaced it with a Miele dishwasher that is quieter and much faster taking around 45 minutes to wash a load of dishes. It cost a lot more than the Kenmore but it was worth it.
"Next." Rather than, "May I help you?"
Yes, but most of their floor staff were paid on commission..................
I signed up for a refrigerator-water-filter replacement plan from Sears, and they just sent me a used filter. I had to persuade the help at a local Sears store to exchange it right there.
Woolworths, Woolco, WT Grant, McCrory Stores, Zayres, TG&Y Stores, Phar-Mor, et al...................Soon to add K-Mart, Sears and JC Penny to the list........
“My Hometown”
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
I was eight years old and running with a dime in my hand
Into the bus stop to pick up a paper for my old man
I’d sit on his lap in that big old Buick and steer as we drove through town
He’d tousle my hair and say son take a good look around this is your hometown
This is your hometown
This is your hometown
This is your hometown
In ‘65 tension was running high at my high school
There was a lot of fights between the black and white
There was nothing you could do
Two cars at a light on a Saturday night in the back seat there was a gun
Words were passed in a shotgun blast
Troubled times had come to my hometown
My hometown
My hometown
My hometown
Now Main Street’s whitewashed windows and vacant stores
Seems like there ain’t nobody wants to come down here no more
They’re closing down the textile mill across the railroad tracks
Foreman says these jobs are going boys and they ain’t coming back to your hometown
Your hometown
Your hometown
Your hometown
Last night me and Kate we laid in bed
talking about getting out
Packing up our bags maybe heading south
I’m thirty-five we got a boy of our own now
Last night I sat him up behind the wheel and said son take a good look around
This is your hometown
I bought that album when it came out and sang along with that tune many many times (my taste has since improved). But the lyrics sure do have more meaning to me than they did back then, particularly the third verse.
Sears Magnolia in Benson, NC $6,488.00
My Little Town
Paul Simon
In my little town
I grew up believing
God keeps his eye on us all
And he used to lean upon me
As I pledged allegiance to the wall
Lord I recall my little town
Coming home after school
Riding my bike past the gates of the factories
My mom doing the laundry
Hanging out shirts in the dirty breeze
And after it rains there’s a rainbow
And all of the colors are black
It’s not that the colors aren’t there
It’s just imagination they lack
Everything’s the same back in my little town
In my little town I never meant nothing
I was just my father’s son
Saving my money
Dreamin of glory
Twitching like a finger on a trigger of a gun
Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town
Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town
Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town
Written by Paul Simon • Copyright © Universal Music Publishing Group
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