Found this article online. Gist is that the pending deal to acquire Hometown stores may fall through since both TransformCo and Hometown are hemorrhaging money. The deals to purchase Hometown and sell Outlet are supposed to close in October but it’s looking like that’s not going to happen. Old Sears owes New Sears money, New Sears isn’t making any money. This is all bad. Real bad. What a mess.
https://www.retaildive.com/news/with-acquisitions-pending-sears-hometown-hemorrhages-sales/563399/
They just got rid of all HR in Illinois and few managers at Indiana’s A&E Factory services.
The Managers are taking HR duties along with Routing (nightmare). Managers in Illinois are freaking out but a few should be fired for being a–holes to employees. Thousands of dollars of inventory is missing along with not knowing if A&E will survive in the months to come.
SHOS has been starved for merch for well over a year, first due to the bankruptcy and then due to Eddie’s financial engineering. The whole of Transform (or whatever is left) is going to die by March 1 2020 and be liquidated and gone by July 1 at the latest. The vendors are gone and not coming back, and the money has run out for the final time.
It’s over.
There were articles from the owner operators pretty much saying the orders were being prioritized to Sears from the warehouses vs. hometown and complaining about it. The board tried to liquidate at that point. Eddie blocked the liquidation by ousting the board members who voted for it since he had more shares. Forcing the sales down keeps the stock price low. Then he looks like he’s coming in to help by buying the whole thing. He gets control of some 600 ish small stores for nearly nothing. They’re already set up to get outside merchandise and had newer computers.
Once the buyout happens then he can send merchandise to them again.
Only thing that he doesn’t realize in the 6 months this takes it also hurts customer loyalty. He sees this as the cheap path to smaller footprint stores. For him it’s about doing this cheaply.
Meanwhile he can ditch Kmart. Slowly sell remaining Sears except where they may be needed to facilitate home services and such.
TransformCo offered to purchase Hometown and Outlet in June. Deal to be finalized in Oct...
And it’s safe to say that if those business are losing money, it is a bad deal for TransformCo...
Would Be nice if you actually read the article. Sears Outlet and Hometown are hemorrhaging money, not Transform Holdco. New Sears is privately held. There is no way for anyone to report accurately on the finances of Transform until Lampert releases the information
They were squeezing merchandise to the stores so the buyout would cost less.
No wonder vendors and suppliers are running away from Eddie. He's the master of business disasters.
And we are shocked???
What a trainwreck.