The profitable stores are all just about gone. Why? Well, let's see: it has a lot to do with location. A profitable store is almost always in a good location sitting on prime, marketable real estate. What was Eddie's intention all along? To sell the assets piece by piece. That included the choice real estate occupied by those profitable stores. Just about all of the best- and better-performing stores had been taken offline and so what's left are mostly the stores that are not as profitable, stores that would sit forever on the market if they were to be closed and stores that are leased. They are being kept alive long enough for Eddie's hedge fund to be able to buy some of the intellectual property (Kenmore, DieHard, maybe Shop Your Way and Home Services) and then it's game over.
As for the few profitable stores left over in the portfolio, it doesn't matter if they stepped up their game and had blisteringly high profit margins, increased volume and higher net income. Those stores are in the minority and there's nothing those stores could do to alleviate the mess that Sears Holdings is in, because the majority of stores combined with the countless sources of cash burn at all levels of the company will cancel out all of those efforts.
The statement that Eddie made about needing to make some material progress is true, because ALL the stores would have to increase their cash flow and profitability significantly and EVERY SINGLE business unit from Hoffman down to each individual department in each individual store (and everything in between) would have to face drastic changes to slow the bleeding just to even be close to having head above water. There would have to be one hell of a marketing plan and a prayer to God that there is enough volume in the thick of 4th quarter to offset the razor thin margins on discounted merchandise during the holidays.
It's not looking so good to me.
@VNgvCQw-1kvl made some valid points here. This deserves to be a thread.