One man with a "my way or the highway" attitude, and a vision of transforming to an asset light company, can manipulate a board of directors and creditors into complete disarray.
There had to be a better way. It just does not add up. Sears should be 50-100 billion dollar company today directly competing with all the big players. They had the infrastucture, they had the employees, they had the vendor relationships. They just gave it up without a real fight.
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My involvement in Sears goes back to 1978 and the company was already in decline even then. They failed to make the necessary changes and investments to keep up with the times. However IMO there was still possibility for a turnaround prior to Eddie Lampert's appearance. In the early 2000's, the company was making a profit and there was cash in the bank, which could have been invested in the retail business. Alan Lacy let the wolf in the door. Eddie embarked on his cut costs, no investment, asset light strategy. He threw $6 billion at share buybacks when the stores were desperately in need of upgrading and investment. Red ink started to flow very soon after Lampert took control. Sales and profits plunged.
We all know how the story turned out. Eddie Lampert offered the world his vision of "Shop Your Way" and customers made their decision: Shop at Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Lowes, all companies willing to invest in stores.
The post bankruptcy plan of a "transformation" is pure fantasy. For the sake of the people still involved I hope this sad saga comes to an end soon.
Eddie never had the slightest interest in running a retail enterprise. Fifteen years of LIES about a magical "transformation " that never materialized, promises made with no intentions of fulfillment. It is, and was, always a retail play to rape and pillage two American icons. May he rot.
Sears was on the decline before Eddie got his hands on Sears. He just accelerated its demise. His 'vision' turned into a real nightmare. Vendors and suppliers wouldn't touch him with a 100 foot pole.
It was his greed that destroyed he American icon, not vision
@sbl what are you talking about? that is entirely an apologist's take on Eddie. Walmart and Target had zero home delivery presence in 2004, and are one day delivery services today. Sears had a much larger home delivery footprint than Amazon in 2004, and an 80 year head start. Instead of investing billions into Sears intrafstructure and logistics where Sears could have been way ahead of the game in getting Sears into the home delivery game even faster, WHERE THEY ALREADY WERE, he let Sears fall apart into disrepair, with turnover faster than an overdone egg because executives couldn't stand him. That's single-handedly on Eddie, because he didn't listen to anyone, it was his way or the highway.
Wishful thinking but Sears was in decline for decades. I’m my opinion, the real decline started when Alan Lacy sold credit to Citibank in 2003 at a time when credit was the cash cow for the company. I remember him saying during a meeting that we’ll now see if Sears Retail can make it on its own with a c—y look on his face. Guess we know how that turned out.
No defense of Eddie, but neither Sears or Kmart was setting any positive sales and profit records before he came to town.