https://seekingalpha.com/news/3528147-advance-auto-to-buy-sears-diehard-brand-for-200m-cnbc?app=1&dr=1&utm_medium=email&utm_source=seeking_alpha#email_link
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Let’s put this in perspective, Diehard sold for $200M. Eddie’s yacht is valued at $130M.
Will this stop the store closings, bring vendors back, and get store inventory? Why didn't Eddie do this before the holiday season before the 100 store closings?
This has no effect on Sears, and the alleged closing you all speak of so often. The profits are mountainous you just will never see it cause it's not put back into the stores. Sears makes more than Wal Mart and Amazon put together!!
At least DieHard has some currency. With millennials hitting 40, Kenmore is associated with oldass dirty machines (much like most Kmarts and Sears) that haven't been replaced in Motel 6s and Howard Johnsons for 40 years and Section 8 housing. Boomers are all retired and don't have buying power anymore, while Gen X is the generation that stopped buying Kenmore in the first place.
Next product in the pipeline. Diehard Ultimate Car Batteries, from Sears, the REAL home of DieHard (lawsuit coming soon)
Sorry to say that it's far from over. Selling diehard will not save this dying empire.
The Transformco executives and DMs keep posting on here telling us the company is doing well. Now we learn that Eddie needs the cash to keep it going. Their lies were once again exposed.
Lowe’s is already selling Kenmore grills.
Interestingly enough, yesterday I found an old VHS tape from Dec 1987 with some Christmas programs on it. I saw a couple of DieHard battery commercials that show a man stranded in the snow with a car that wouldn’t start, standing around in the middle of nowhere. The tagline was something like “now he has some time alone to think about buying a DieHard battery next time. DieHard sold exclusively at Sears.” How times have changed!
And all that is left is Kenmore...I predict one of the home improvement chains will pick it up to private-label appliances with (Lowe's would make sense since they already have Craftsman).
This MIGHT buy Transform another month....MIGHT. At this point it doesn't really matter much if this infusion keeps the light on an extra few weeks. If the cash burn is worse than it was before then it might not even last two weeks. Transform has bigger issues to address and if they can't even manage to pay vendors or liquidators at this time then it's doubtful $200 million will matter in any meaningful way. I expect that revenue and cash flow are decreasing at increasing rates so sadly this $200 million will simply be thrown into the furnace of Transform behind billions of others before it.
200 million
How long will that last?
Well since you will be able to buy diehard t Walmart there is no need for sears auto centers
Although DieHard is best known as a brand of car batteries, I have also seen ordinary non-car batteries, boots, shoes, and socks with this brand. Do those also move from Sears to Advance?
Advance Auto Parts to buy DieHard brand from Sears for $200 million in cash deal
PUBLISHED MON, DEC 23 201910:01 AM ESTUPDATED 8 MIN AGO
Lauren Thomas
Advance Auto Parts will be buying DieHard for $200 million, using all cash on hand.
The deal is expected to close Monday.
Sears and Kmart have continued to close stores. This sale will provide it with much-needed cash as it tries to turn around its business.
H/O: DieHard battery
Source: DieHard
Advance Auto Parts is acquiring Sears’ DieHard brand, known for its car batteries, for $200 million in cash, CNBC has learned.
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Under a supply agreement, Sears and Kmart owner Transformco will still have the rights to sell some DieHard items in Sears stores, Advance Chief Executive Officer Tom Greco told CNBC in a phone interview. Advance Auto Parts will also give Transformco an “exclusive royalty-free, perpetual license” to develop and market DieHard products in other nonautomotive categories.
The deal also provides Sears and Kmart with much-needed cash. The retailers have been trying to turnaround their businesses since filing for bankruptcy in 2018, but they appear to be facing some of the same struggles they had seen before the Chapter 11 filing. In November, Sears had secured an additional $250 million lifeline from lenders that included Eddie Lampert.
Greco said Advance started to have conversations with Transformco in the middle of this year.
“We have been looking at the [battery] category for a couple of years,” Greco said in a phone interview. “DieHard has the highest brand awareness and regard of any automotive battery brand in North America.”
Even before its bankruptcy, Sears had been trying to sell assets to infuse cash back into its business. It sold its Craftsman tool brand in 2017 to Stanley Black & Decker.
″[W]e have long believed that the [DieHard] brand has even more potential,” Peter Boutros, president of Transformco’s Kenmore, Craftsman and DieHard business unit, said in a statement. “Advance Auto Parts’ acquisition ... will complement our plans to introduce new DieHard products in non-automotive categories such as sporting goods, lawn and garden, authentic work wear and other exciting new categories.”
Lampert, a hedge fund billionaire and former Sears CEO, paid $5.2 billion and promised to save 425 Sears and Kmart stores and roughly 45,000 jobs when he struck a deal to buy the company out of bankruptcy in February.
But the embattled department store chain’s real estate footprint continues to dwindle. In November, the company said it would be closing 96 more Sears and Kmart stores. By early 2020, the entire business will be left with 182 locations.
At the time of Sears’ bankruptcy, there were more than 700 Sears and Kmart stores.
Transformco had recently said it was still exploring ways “to realize a significant return on our extensive portfolio of owned and leased real estate,” which includes logistics business Innovel, Sears Home Services, the Shop Your Way membership program and Kenmore.
For Advance, the deal will help the auto parts retailer grow its portfolio of brands and drive more traffic to its thousands of stores. It hopes to attract people who are loyal to the DieHard brand, which has been around since 1967.
In December 2017, prior to going bankrupt, Sears struck a deal to sell various items from the DieHard brand on Amazon. Greco said that partnership will not be continuing with Advance. But instead, the Advance CEO said his company will be looking to bring DieHard to some of its other retail partners, including Walmart.
Sears also still operates three DieHard stores, but has no plans to open anymore. Advance will be able to decide if they want to keep them open or close them.
Guess it will help put the lights on for about another month, eh?