Is Eddie really such an autist that he doesn't realize that vendors see no difference between the money that SHLD owes them and the money that Transform owes them? When the money goes to the lawyers, when doesn't go with Ch 7, when he goes with a $5.2B bid or infuses with $250M bid or all that borrowing and they don't see a penny of recovery, they are p-ss-d. It's all the same people. Leena is still there, they office of the CEO is there, Eddie is still there, the stores are still there. You don't get to cancel all the debt, bring in a bunch of cash, refuse to sign checks and say, hey, we're open for business, let's go! The people working for him tried to get value out of the business, they really did. Sears Commercial/Kenmore Direct, Parts Direct, Auto, Services, the FLS and the rest, they all had value, and a lot of it at the time of the bankruptcy, over 800 stores, and so did the Hometown stores and outlets, and Eddie destroyed all of it, and it's ALL on him. His personal credit rating is shot, and his personal bad karma took the rest of the Sears empire down with him, and he seems wholly ignorant of this, acting as this personally has nothing to do with him. He's always acted like this. He's probably generally and clinically a sociopath, unable to model the social actions of others, no joke.
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Eddie simply thinks he has all the answers and everyone else is wrong. He has constantly stuck
With the same ideas and expected them to all of a sudden click with the customer. SYWR anyone?
He created an environment of infighting amongst business units.
Example; Had this system of charging businesses “money” for aged inventory. So on paper a businesses performance was hurt by these charges but this money wasn’t real so no one benefits. This was an enormous time s— and margin drain as people would make aggressive moves to reduce the age inventory which then hurt real margin $ and store assortments. If there was an actual strategy and goals to march toward as whole company and everyone used these energies to drive traffic and a good customer experience (it didn’t even have to be great) there would have been little aged inventory. Additionally much of the aged inventory was caused be not taking timely markdowns and having out season broken inventory assortment that perpetrated the poor customer experience and tied up inventory dollars on dated products.
The writing has been on the wall for a long long time. But the nail in the coffin should have been hammered in when he said in a townhall when we emerged from bk that we were going to keep doing what we have been doing and relying on sywr as our platform forward and now that we were out of the debit we could move forward. But nothing change. Sales still slumped, didn’t do anything to create a good shopping experience or driven traffic , still screwed over vendors Again and again and still continues to hurt associates who have put in years of service to what use to be a great company.
Well I hope he can looking himself in the mirror someday and admit he doesn’t know it all and realize the issues he has caused. He won’t.
And all the while, everyone sits on a board an complains, while Eddie sits on his yacht and drinks champagne and eats the best food, laughing all the way to the bank. What you going to do about it?
Objectivism (Ayn Rand’s “greed is good” theology) was Eddie’s downfall. He bought into that philosophy hook, line and sinker. It’s a belief system that works for a hedge fund manager because those guys are out for themselves only and screwing others is pretty much how they make their money. Retail is a business that requires trust, loyalty, mutual respect and servant leadership to build a customer base and keep it, which all flies in the face of objectivism. You won’t last as retailer when your total objective is to screw the customer instead of serving them.
He’s still only out for himself, he’s admitted he’s an Ayn Rand devotee who would totally advocate funneling as much as possible into his own pocket and not look back.
no doubt el screwed everyone but enron? cmon.
He will be remembered as a man who brought down two retail giants. The man who has everything but not one thing he truly desired.
He failed miserably as he was not able to listen, living in a bubble, surrounded by the worst kind of corporate “leaders”.
I don’t think he can change what was done in his lifetime or his legacy in the business world. However, I hope he can find a joy in what really matters to most of us - our families and people we truly care about.
This for sure is true. I work for the Kmart in Big Bear Lake and there is a local that sold his own products like souvenirs and other things. After the hold Chapter 7 happened though, they ended up not paying him back money they owned him.
When he came back to them as the """new""" company, they of course still didn't pay him because their defense is it wasn't their debt anymore. The only token thing they gave him is that they were willing to sell his stuff again, which he wisely turned them down, who wouldn't?! How about you pay him back, first you pricks?
He will go down in history as the perpetrator of the greatest business failure in history. Even eclipsing Enron.