I want to speak directly to those of you on this board who are employees of Sears. I work at HE and no, I’m not here to troll and no we don’t monitor this website or have people post on it to “rah-rah” about the company.
Truth be told I only heard about this website a few weeks ago and began checking it a few times a week. I wanted to come on here and clear up some of the many misconceptions about the company.
First the recent Whirlpool news. We did try to negotiate w/Whirlpool for several months, however they were insistent on charging us 15-20% over what they are charging certain competitors. At the end of the day we had no choice but to drop them from our lineup.
This in turn has caused a massive drop in the market cap of whirlpool, today their CEO tried hitting us back which has caused a drop in SHLD market cap however I suspect that will rebound within the next few days as our liquidity position is more than ample for the foreseeable future and that is the markets primary concern regarding SHLD. As we speak SHLD is moving up off its lows and WHR continues its descent, now down about 11%. As a result of our dropping WHR from our lineup they were forced to lower their market forward EPS projections and it is driving them down substantially.
Believe me we would like nothing more than to continue to work with WHR however they cannot merely take advantage of us. We have been a loyal partner for a century and have never had so much as a late payment. Whirlpool would not be in business today if it were not for Sears & Roebuck. Recently the quality of WHR products has also been a growing concern as well.
For the last week I have witnessed posts on this site implying that WHR was cutting off SHLD and the doom and gloom etc. this is simply not the case. WHR needs SHLD more than we need them.
There is substantial misinformation being spread to our employees on this website. Yes, this has been a difficult year. Yes we face challenges as all retailers do in the current environment. Bankruptcy however is not imminent nor is it something Mr. Lampert is even considering at this juncture. Please take these rumors with a large grain of salt.
Our transformation has been slower and more difficult than anyone could have imagined. However we have made progress. Through 2018 we will continue our efforts to remodel and enhance our stores. New POS systems have been in development to eliminate the bottlenecks in store and we hope to deploy late 2018 based on cash flow. Also you will see an expansion of our smaller format stores - in particular the continued development of the Pharr, Tx model as well as Fort Collins style of stores. More information about this will be on Pebble in the near future.
At HE we do think of all of our associates as family. While we have been focused on the transformation we have probably not been paying enough attention to morale. I’m sorry for that. When I looked at this website and saw some of the posts I realized we were letting some of you down. We will try to do more and do it better.
As chairman Lampert said a few months ago, we are fighting like hell to save this company. And together we will.
One more thing. A lot of you aren’t aware but Eddie Lampert wasn’t born into money. His father died when he was young and his mother worked retail at the counter at saks. Eddie Lampert did his part going to high school and working in a warehouse nights and weekends to help make ends meet. He only went to college on a partial scholarship and a lot of financial aid and became the success he is today through hard work. He wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He’s fighting too and he’s standing right there with you.
Best wishes for a successful holiday season to all of you and here’s to the beginning of the new Sears.