Posted on 10/15/2018 4:31:14 AM PDT by DCBryan1
Sears Holdings filed for bankruptcy protection early Monday after years of staying afloat through financial maneuvering and relying on billions of CEO Eddie Lampert's own money. The company also announced that Lampert will be stepping down as CEO, effective immediately, although he remains its chairman.
The 125-year-old retailer, once the nation's largest, said Monday it was appointing Mohsin Meghji, managing partner of M-III Partners, as its chief restructuring officer.
As part of the bankruptcy, Sears will shutter 142 stores toward the end of the year. It expects to begin liquidation sales shortly.
The bankruptcy filing comes more than a decade after Lampert merged Sears and Kmart, hoping that forging together the two struggling discounters would create a more formidable competitor.
Lampert has shed Sears assets and spun out real estate to pay down the debt the retailer accumulated when that plan went askew. The company still has roughly 700 stores, which have at times been barren, unstocked by vendors who have lost their trust. Many of the stores have never been visited by younger generations of shoppers.
Also see: Sears is closing another 142 stores. Here's a map of the locations it has left
Lampert, who has a controlling ownership stake in Sears, personally holds some 31 percent of its shares outstanding, according to FactSet. His hedge fund ESL Investments owns about 19 percent.
But even with the bankruptcy filing, Lampert continues to invest in Sears. The retailer said Monday morning ESL is negotiating a $300 million debtor in possession loan to support it through its bankruptcy. That loan comes on top of an additional $300 million it has secured from investment banks.
"ESL invested time and money in Sears because we believe the company has a future," ESL and Lampert said in a statement Monday.
Guess I better hurry and finish out my Craftsman socket set collection.
I heard Sears stopped sending out catalogs in 1993. Used to enjoy the Christmas Wish List ones.
Now there's a concept....playing outside!
05/31/2018 6:23:04 PM PDT · 64 of 79It doesn't bode well for swamp draining.
spintreebob to null and voidThen some MBA decided that could cut expenses and raise prices. Not at all the Sears story. The Brenn and Brothers ran Monky Wards and Sears into the ground in the 80s.(The same boys who drove the GOP into the ground post Reagan as they controlled all RNC money.) They nutured a hierarchical structure of many dozens of layers of bureaucracy. The mid-level bureaucracy of men in their 40s and 50s and 60s were paid based on how inefficient they were.
The bigger their staff in Sears Tower, and then Hoffman Estates, the more important they were and the bigger their salary and perks. The stock holders finally got rid of Brennan and brought in Martinez.
Martinez brought in good people at the top. They had good ideas. But the Asst VPs, Directos, Managers.. 50+ levels of bureaucracy in Hoffman Estates actively and blatantly obstructed everything that the Matinez team tried to do.
The middle management also blocked every good idea from the bottom. I was on various IT teams as a consultant. My IT team lead had extremely good ideas on how to implement The Softer Side of Sears . His ideas involved checking what was selling in real time with my online programs. Lee, Levi and other suppliers were begging us to re-order in real time. In the back to school season, Sears most profitable season, we had no clue what styles would be hot... and if hot would vary by store location.
Online tracking of sales and re-order in real time was so obvious. But to do so would eliminate the entire buyer department of hundreds of self-important lazy buffoons and their managers.
Middle management insisted that they would run inventory re-plenishment off the quarterly report, meaning Back-to-school replenishment would be ordered about October 15, way too late to compete with Walmart and others.
A sister team to mine had a great plan on how to turn the Sears Catalog into an online catalog. It was a vision ... an Amazon. But Middle Management shot it down. All they saw were character based 3270s. They did not understand how people could shop on a computer because a computer had no pictures of the item like a catalog did. That is how much in the 1950s middle management was living in the 1990s.
Sears and IBM partnered to buy Prodigy and to create the first Cloud. Neither Sears nor IBM management had a clue what to do with what they bought. Middle management of both companies shot down every good idea, most of which came from the bottom in this case.
Lands End bought Sears and had good ideas. Sears middle management refused to implement them. Lampert bought Sears and Kmart for the real estate, not the retail business. Sears was one of the largest owners of real estate in the world.
Sears was not done in by some young MBA. It was done in by the Sears Swamp, the Sears establishment of middle aged and older men who wanted to protect their bureaucracy because their bureaucracy protected them.
“You used to be able to buy anything, absolutely anything through the Sears catalog.”
You could but bees, monkeys, and ponies. And not that long ago.
I was trying to describe Green Stamps to my kids. They thought it was the weirdest thing. But then I told them it was a manual version of getting points on your credit card.
As a kid, I remember well sitting at the kitchen table licking and sticking. It was such a relief when they came out with the 10x stamp.
I bought my first firearm, a Marlin 80 DL .22 rifle from Sears by mail. That was back in the early 60s. When it came in, they called me and I walked a mile to the bus stop, took two city buses and walked another mile to the outlet. Showed them my receipt, they handed me the box, and I walked/rode/rode/walked the return trip. I was 16.
I still have that .22 and it has taken its share of squirrels. I did put a better scope on it.
That's what caused their failure. Also, their home appliances were too expensive.
Adapt, or die.
No need to worry about that, Craftsman was sold...last year, I think to Black and Decker. They are available at my local Ace
I have watched Lampert just totally ride Sears and KMart all the way down the flusher. From my admitted non-professional position, it sure does seem that Lampert never really sought to try and do anything more than quick fixes based upon short-term goals which might result in more financing options. The reality is, it seems, is that Lampert played this thing until he wrung out every last financial drop like a squeezed turnip and no one would give him anymore credit.
Thanks for the tip.
I was told that back in the 70s the Sears CEO was asked how they would respond to Walmart....his answer.”We’re Sears Roebuck...we don’t have to respond to anyone”!!!!
You are correct, he has executed an almost perfect asset stripping exercise. The loans he has made to Sears were secured on the real property owned by Sears. Another management team would have moved Sears into the online retail space but that would have been in conflict with his long term strategy. There will be nothing left for the unsecureds and the shareholders.
Many years ago, it was generally known that rather than the best and the brightest, Sears hired from below the peak of the curve.
I always wondered about the Sears shoe selling husband of my mother’s adopted sister.
Craftsman are sold at Ace hardware!!And they honor the warranty!!!
“It was such a relief when they came out with the 10x stamp.”
My mother put the one page stamps in. I had to do the 1x stamps.
I can’t disagree.
It is so sad. Sears begat Amazon. You could order a home from a catalog and have it built from a Sears catalog at one time.
Over the years there have been many constants about Lampert’s tenure...
One being he won’t listen to anyone with Retail experience... Running Sears like a hedge fund... making departments compete against each other for resources.. no common message, theme, nothing...
Sears was a company that was FOUNDED on mail order... if there was a company that SHOULD have been able to navigate the world of Brick and Mortar and Online... Sears was one that had the historical pedigree to do it...
When he took the helm, Sears still had a strong hold on appliances... but as the box stores moved into that space, Sears never defended its position. I can walk into HD or Lowes and buy the same thing, cheaper and get it delivered faster... (Ever dealt with Sears subcontracted delivery service?.... or their subcontracted/licensed repair service)?
Its depressing, Sears was a great american Company, and it may have died anyway... but watching the insanity that Lampert engaged in with it has been beyond depressing to watch...
Maybe someone will manage to rise it from the Ashes... but its had its identity destroyed for nearly 2 decades now... It doesn’t even register in consumers minds to go to Sears, if they are under 50... because if they have, they have pretty much been shown there is NOTHING there for them... and if it is, its price is too high.
There was a time Sears was the first place you remotely thought about going to shop for ANYTHING... but anyone under my age, of nearly 50,probably never even thinks of the store... and even someone like me who will give Sears a shot, every now and again, when I need something... finds themselves not finding what they need, or dealing with terrible service.. not in the store per se, but by the subcontractors Sears has using their name.
I am finding Craftsman tools at Lowe’s. Also their tool chests.
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