Sears ($SHLD) CEO Ed Lampert, whose hedge fund ESL Investments is Sears’ largest shareholder, swears business is great – calling reports of a pending bankruptcy “unbalanced,” and said the media had been “deliberately unfair” for a decade.
“We don’t need more customers. We have all the customers we could possibly want,” Lampert said at Sears’ annual shareholder meeting. “As soon as we start making money, people are gonna say, ‘How did I miss this?’”
“I give you my assurance I am not in denial,” he added. –Fox Business
Lampert, who is surely not mentally ill, spent much of the 90 minute Annual Shareholder Meeting ranting over a slideshow – insisting the media had unfairly hounded the retailer with negative news, “meant to scare our vendors” who then tried to negotiate better deals with the company.
“Every time people use the word bankruptcy, somebody who reads that doesn’t get past that word,” he said. “It makes it very unfair for us, and it’s a very uneven playing field for us.”
Once the largest U.S. retailer, Sears has not reported a profit for six years – which Lampert compared to Amazon‘s early growth. Lampert then warned haters of pending regret:
“As soon as we start making money, people are gonna say, ‘How did I miss this?’
Sure Eddie – couldn’t be your shitty business and the fact that you failed to jettison your ghost-town mall properties and successfully adapt to the online model.
Here’s a chart of $SHLD revenue going back to 2004, courtesy of Exodus
And a chart of the carnage – thanks to the ‘irresponsible’ media:
Fear not $SHLD longs, Eddie Lampert says “I’ll fight like hell” (to fix stores), adding: “We don’t want to destroy value, we want to create value.”
$SHLD closed down 9.61% today at $10.16
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He needs to institute am IQ test as part of the interview process if he wants to make it better.
Sold off Craftsman, that was insane.
Sears once great, nice stores now find themselves inside ghettos due to urbanization gone awry. Time to unlimber these properties and move out into the burbs.
The priv equity dudes who took over aren’t interested in share value.
They’re waiting for bankruptcy so they can grab it all cheeep as sr debt holders.