Of course he is that scumbag. That was his plan all along.
Yeah, it was the plan all along, or at least the expected exit hatch when things went south.
Oh, laid off workers? Sorry, can’t help.
Executives though? Well…Another story!
My understanding is that the logic behind this is that a company going through bankruptcy has an incredibly hard time keeping executives needed to wind down/recover and that this isn’t a Sears-specific thing. In comparison, the line employees are not critical for such operations.
Whether these execs are truly essential, I don’t know, but I can imagine that they could potentially be essential and that they would, in fact, be very hard to retain otherwise. Heck, given Sears’s last few years, I can imagine they’ve had a really hard time attracting talent.
I mean everyone acts surprised. The CEO - and majority shareholder - bought high when he picked up Sears and looked like he was going to have to sell low; instead he decided to extract every dollar possible while running it to the ground on the smallest possible budget.
All that “he’s a believer in Ayn Rand” stuff is just the distraction of short term thinking, imo. I don’t care what he said or says but what he did, because it was still publically traded and he isn’t going to announce “hey everybody i’m going to run it into the ground and make your stock worthless so i can extract all the money i can to pay off my initial investment” either to Sears management or some journalist. But that was his plan a decade ago when he (imo in his mind) decided it was more certain to get his money back sinking Sears than trying to rebuild and compete with Amazon et al. Frankly that story a while ago that he set departments against themselves literally sounds like a guy trying to burn the company up from within. Let the peasants eat cake and think i’m a crazy Libertarian, basically.
The destruction of Sears is 100% the story of a predatory investor that picked up a massive merchandiser weakened by modern shifts in the business climate, and who when he saw his massive investment threatened, decided to lean into that weakness in order to liquidate the company and convert the companies massive retail space into cash he could recover.
No, anyone still at the dumpster fire of Sears at an executive level is disposable, as anyone with a modicum of potential would have vacated long ago (except those looking to grift like the CEO). Bring up some lower level dudes to fill the positions of Execs and VP’s so they can use that on their resume and no big huge bonuses need to be paid out to the people who sunk the company. I mean really, a drunk, blind, fruit bat could have done the same job with the same results.
80 more store closures in the next 3 months.
And there she goes. it was only a matter of time I suppose.
This, except minus the Sears part. The myth of executives being magical unicorns who must be paid millions upon millions of dollars or you just can’t get one to work for you is utter nonsense, perpetrated by the investor class for the investor class.
Well that and in Sears’ case those executives just ran it into the ground to line their pockets. I don’t think they need to pay millions to get other people to do better. Pretty much anyone can close it out.
Is the Sears name worth anything at this point?
What I’m wondering is if someone could purchase the brand and start over. Because it sounds as if they could have made a go of it up until some point, until the current owner decided to purposely run it into the ground.
I’d probably shop there if it were re-opened under new ownership.
I mean, whoever bought the name would have to have new locations, and would need to start small, but I think a lot of folks miss the place and would go there again if they knew someone else was in charge. But if they’ve sold off the Craftsman and Kenmore brands already, it may not be feasible, unless they were bought back I suppose.
Also, retail is sort of dying, but I think there would be a demand for this, if done with a reasonably small number of stores, strategically placed and with an on-line presence to complement it.
No. 45
You’ve really answered your own question. What value there was in Sears has been sold off. The remains are a husk.
It hasn’t been nearly long enough, the nostalgia is still negative - Sears is now a disinterested look through a discount rack of severely out-of-fashion blue jeans.
In 5-20 years the brand could come back as mail-order plaid shirt supplier or something.
Its kaput.
Not quite yet. The court is giving Lampert one more shot at it, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Just die already.
I know the current Sears that’s slowly being strangled is a far cry from the Sears & Roebuck of yore, but it’s important to remember the impact the company had on America. For decades the company catalog was one of only a few ways a black American could get the same shopping experience as a white person. White-owned businesses would often decline their business, or treat them like shit, and the few black-owned stores were at the mercy of white banks and wholesalers so they were unable to carry the breadth of stock the bigger stores did. The catalog represented judgment-free shopping, and offered credit terms on bigger purchases, which Montgomery Ward (the next closest competitor) did not.
In many ways, Sears was the Amazon of its time. A disruptive business model that threatened the traditional business model. It just coincidentally had the side-effect of giving black customers a measure of equality.