Community Chat

[Chicagosuburbangirl]

@Diva on The Q Thanks for the memory of Sears charm school.

I went to it it too. At graduation we had a modeling show.

My mom took us down to the break room and I got to have red cream soda, a real treat.

So many nice memories.

[VanSleepy]

My husband started his career at Sears - Discover Card/Dean Witter.  That is what brought us to New York from Illinois nearly 30 years ago.  Sad.

I'm laughing at the Charm School references, though.  When my mother would be "disappointed" in me or my sister for something, we would jokingly say, "That's what you get for not enrolling us in charm school."

[QVCPhobe]

That is sad.  My family shopped there for years.

[Deanie]

I was in complete agreement with the poster's references to "good ole Eddie" being a vulture. IMHO,that is indeed what transpired at this icon of a company. How many times do we see companies transformed by the shameful actions of those that would enrich themselves at the expense of the many? In this case the many include the stockholders, stakeholders, customers, staff. The list goes on. And, before one says it is strictly business, allow me to present another example. Walmart has always been vilified for predatory marketing. The store enters a market, sells below cost and drives out the competition. Then, when no longer profitable in that location picks up stakes and moves. This has happened in many places recently. The customers many of them elderly now have to drive sometimes 50 miles to the nearest town to shop. They are complaining loudly. Who is to blame? The customers previously abandoned shopping at the Mom and Pops that had existed for decades. They closed up. so, where in this instance does the onus lie? The customers who abandoned the Mom and Pops to shop at Walmart or the predatory practices that led to this result?  Well, it is strictly business.

[sidsmom]

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 $@Spurt wrote:

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@ValuSkr wrote:

Beisdes being a major investor in Sears, Eddie Lampert is Sears' major (or largest?) creditor.  As such, he may end up owning most or all of Sears when it emerges from Chapter 11.  And that may be exactly what he intended.  Is he crazy like a fox?

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@ValuSkr @FrostyBabe1

Your right, all the decisions made by their CEO, Lambert, all along didnt seem to be made to save the company, but to enrich his own pockets.......

"ESL may walk away with the prized brand assets and real estate portfolio that Lampert always coveted, but Sears as an ongoing retail operation is doomed sooner or later."

****** SeeselPrincipal, Retailing In Focus LLC

"Eddie Lampert figured out a way to enrich himself by creating the world’s longest liquidation sale for this century-old brand."

Cathy HotkaPrincipal, Cathy Hotka & Associates

Is Eddie Lampert looking to save Sears or suck it dry?

Sep 25, 2018

by George Anderson

If the only responsibility of business is to make a profit within the rules of the game as Milton Friedman once wrote, then ESL Investments, the hedge fund run by Edward Lampert with a controlling interest in Sears Holdings, appears to be fulfilling its duty. The same cannot be said for the parent company of Sears and Kmart, which is also run by Mr. Lampert. It is facing bankruptcy as early as next month if something isn’t done quickly to renegotiate its debt and increase revenues.

Mr. Lampert has a plan to keep Sears Holdings going, but will it help revive the retailer or just allow ESL to get more value from its investment before the decision to liquidate its remaining assets are made?

Yesterday, the board of Sears Holdings chaired by Mr. Lampert, announced that it was in receipt of a proposal by ESL that recommends it renegotiate $1.1 billion in debt that will come due in 2019 and 2020. It also proposed that the company sell real estate valued at $1.5 billion and assets including the Kenmore brand and Sears Home Services to raise another $1.75 billion.

Mr. Lampert offered last month to buy Kenmore for $400 million, a business that Sears Holdings had valued at $500 million as recently as April, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

The truth is that there may be no other option for Sears Holdings to stay in business if it doesn’t take ESL’s deal. If it used all the proceeds from the steps proposed, Sears could cut its debt from $5.5 billion to around $1.24 billion, according to a filing by ESL. 

The hedge fund’s filing, with no apparent sense of irony, said the retailer “must act immediately to have sufficient runway to continue its transformation.” Sears Holdings has lost $11.7 billion since 2010, the last year it turned a profit, according to CNN. Same-store sales for the company were down 3.9 percent for the quarter despite operating in a favorable retail market. Sears and Kmart, which operated more than 3,500 stores combined when they merged in 2005, currently have fewer than 900 stores.

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@Spurt@ValuSkr@FrostyBabe1

And to make it more “Things That Make You Go ‘Hummm,’”

Steven Mnuchin was a member of Sears’s board from

2005 until December 2016, and before that was a director

for K-Mart Corp., which was acquired by Sears in 2005.

He was a college roommate of Lampert...and invested $26MM to

Lampertt’s hedge fund before eventually becoming the Treasury Sec’y. 

[Judaline]

Did you know that during WWll Sears told the men/women who served that they would have their jobs when they got back? It was quite a few years, too, and they stood by their word.

[goldensrbest]

Must say i find it sad also,back in the day my dad bought sears tools, we bought clothes, when i had my first boy in 1971,i bought baby clothes all kinds on things for him,those cute little terry cloth sleepers ,with feet in them,we bought lots of things.

[missy1]

I have read that it does not effect the Sears Hometown stores.

[proudlyfromNJ]

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@ValuSkr wrote:

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@Cakers3 wrote:

Sears used to sell kits to build houses, too.

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It looks like a nice house.  I wonder if they were any good.

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@ValuSkr.  The house next door to mine growing up was a Sears house. They offered many different models. This one was like a Dutch Colonial. All brick on the outside. All the rooms were big. Every time the house was sold to a new owner, it was sold for a lot of money.

[happycat]

Our local Kmart is closing because of this. I hate to see it go, hate to see folks lose their jobs, but at the same time kind of surprised it wasn't closed down before this.