Thread regarding Sears layoffs

@cak-- you obviously have never taken a finance course or even understand how to read financials.

And what exactly is your point?

Double digit interest is !!%. See two numbers = double.

Charging that interest because it is a huge risk is spot on and Eddie knows the risk. Which means he knows how bad the situation is. And EBIDA means nothing

So what is your point? Are you trying to tell us how great the company is doing or trying to prove how bad it is that even Eddie has to charge arm twisting interest to cover the risk of default?

Also, please read @1xrv reply-- they understand how the world works

@R9oGxzY-2glg - ....Bottom line gang is that the reason others on wall street don't pour money in, is ESL and Berkowitz have it all locked up.....

I believe you're mistaken

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1214344/000091957418005864/xslF345X03/ownership.xml

Bruce dumped all of his shares of SHLD stock. See the "D's" and the "0" on the form?

This is too useful an overview and accessible explanation of the financial scam that Vulture Fund Hedge Fund director Eddie Lampert is playing to come from an "Anonymous" reporter. Hope you will consider adding your name, unlike the trolling critics trying to muddy the waters.

We in the U.S. have not one Public Interest news broadcaster remaining, with the FCC about 45 years ago when Wage Stagnation began its current HOLDING PATTERN in the name of Libertarianism (which is a code word for Feudal Oligarchy where the possession of dollars sets policy rather than the votes of an informed electorate. Unfettered Capital tends to concentrate with wealth for the few creating impoverishment of the commonwealth).

Canada, the EU nation states, Australia, New Zealand and much of Latin America retain Public Interest broadcasters, fighting off capture by the Corporate Caliphate and unlike here in the U.S. where all Public Broadcasting is underwritten by Robber Baron endowments and Wall Street is privileged over Main Street 24\7 with our current results of the historically highest concentration of wealth in the fewest hands in recorded history (see Timothy Noah's quantification in THE GREAT DIVERGENCE or Thomas Piketty's influential international French analysis now translated into many languages CAPITAL IN THE 21st CENTURY. Ayn Rand and her devotees shun quantification (which is perhaps their only redeeming value), yet neither do they qualify their Identity-based socio-economic assertions and fictions.

For good and accessible reporting explaining why the Eddie Lampert ESL hedge fund business model leveraged major loans to amass the long-failing ghost mall Sears and K-Mart chains to benefit themselves at the expense of their fellow Sears Holdings shareholders turn to the Public Interest reporters at Canada's CBC (or Australia's ABC, or the British BBC) and even the June 2018 edition of the U.S. newspaper chain modeled on the TV screen, namely USA TODAY with these reports deepening the understanding of readers. Tragically the Trump Sideshow has side-lined the news that matters to working people which is the strategy of the Oligarchs.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/06/18/sears-ceo-eddie-lampert-kmart/638218002/

There was hardly any U.S. journalistic herd response to either the USA TODAY investigative report into Lampert's business strategy. Our Public Airwaves turn every week into THIS WEEK ON WALL STREET or PLANET MONEY or BUSINESS INSIDER or MARKETPLACE WITH PERPETUALLY BULLISH KAI RYSSDAL or BLOOMBERG BUSINESS NEWS (whose good reporting on Lampert's strategy with ESL positioning Sears to fail for the shareholders but concentrate the real estate holdings sell-off value rivaled only by THE VATICAN prioritized to the main lender to Sears-Mart, namely Lampert's ESL HEDGE FUND. Bloomberg News reporting is often too complex for business economics-shy U.S. news "con-sumers"). For those always screaming about a left-wing or social democracy bias at NPR or PBS the so-called Public's Air Waves, note there has never in its history been one program from the WAGE SLAVE perspective as experienced on Main Street rather than Wall Street.

My attempts to produce for local Oregon Public Broadcasting (the state-wide OPB and collegiate Mt Hood College KMHD monopoly on Public Broadcasting) just such a program, WAGE SLAVE WEEK has been met with silence from the Corporate Caliphate boardrooms of the Koch Brothers and vast right wing endowment funds like Bradley, Mellon, Simon, Scaife, Cato (currently in revolt over Koch Family control), Brookings and Heritage foundations). I propose also criticizing Big Labor's failure to ever DEMAND EQUAL ACCESS TO THE PUBLIC AIR WAVES and that is a no-no across the political spectrum the Oligarchs to the Worker Drones and Food Stamp Nation (aka the stagnant minimum wage working poor of our GIG E-CON which is the Ayn Rand Libertarian Feudal Lord of Finance's dream of zero cost for Labor. Never mind it also depletes Main Street's spending power and our national security).

Simply think of the scam Mel Brooks dreamt up for his first film THE PRODUCERS. For the investors of a Broadway play to make real money, they have to guarantee a failure and short run. So they a Nazi loser in NYC to write and mount a musical SPRINGTIME FOR HITLER. Guaranteed failure, right? The investors can keep all the funds they collected, right? Turns into a camp smash comedy. Laughs abound.

Unfortunately for U.S. and Canadian Sears K-MART workers their pension funds have been looted of its value and the shareholders will absorb the losses in proportion to Lampert's ESL Hedge Fund prioritized pay day when they sell off Sears massive commercial real estate holdings.

Spend some time with the CBC bi-lingual (English-French) Public Interest broadcast now on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbBluh92Kac

For the bigger picture on Eddie Lampert's strategy to shift the risk to the public and position his Hedge Fund to rake in the unproductive wealth of Sears accumulated Real Estate holdings not unlike the 2008 Abacus Fund Goldman Sachs scam that never got criminally prosecuted and Hedge Funds are unregulated, the Macro E-con omic Wall Street v. Main Street turn to the Whistle Blowers from Goldman Sachs like Nomi Prins whose post 2008 TARP TAX-PAYER BAIL OUT of WALL STREET FINANCE is titled

IT TAKES A PILLAGE.

Here she gets 2 half hour interviews, uninterrupted by Corporate Underwriters or commercial sponsorship to explain what was happening and why amid the panic of the Bush-Cheney years and then the Quantitative Easing Crony Continuity of the Obama-Biden and cabinet full of Wall Street Apex Predators so-called Financial Reform Decade leading to Trump Swamp. Turn to GRIT TV an indie Public Interest YouTube producer hosted by Laura Flanders, share, host a viewing party and discuss:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3cKi0DDwUY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUaiN56_M3k

Mitch Ritter\Paradigm Shifters

Lay-Low Studios, Ore-Wa

Media Discussion List

@R9oGxzY Sorry, you don't get it. Explains why you work at sears and make minimum wage.

@R9oGxzY-cak Congrats, you win the prize, you actually do get it (one out of ten on here do). I suspect you're a day trader coming here to laugh at the idiots like I do.

Bottom line gang is that the reason others on wall street don't pour money in, is ESL and Berkowitz have it all locked up. Theres not enough pie left for GS, BOA, BH etc to go after it and make it worth their while. When the stores rebound, and they will, those two will make a ton. A handful of sears employees will do ok and most of you all will still be bitter complaining on here how Eddie robbed you.... BWAHAHAHAAHAH

If you have any savings left I suggest you all buy as much SHLD stock as you can get your hands on, but most of you are too dumb...

Ok, lesson over, go back to your b--ching and whining.

Steve muchkin is eddies favorite little person. They have been tied together since college when he was and still is the wizard of oz. He taught him all his secrets and then some. They must be laughing at us stupid nasty store employees. What a bunch of stupid people to work for us and try and make it right when the business model was not transformed at all. Let's sow our seeds. How about lock eddie up with shady business practices etc. I know it will never happen. I wish eddie all the luck in world. At least he has cleaning supplies and tp in his mansion and yacht while we have to pay for our own in our dilapidated store. Too much of an expense. Ebita eddie.

@cak. EBITDA, EBITDA, EBITDA. You do understand that SHC fixation on EBITDA is the least valuable metric to judge a companies viability by, right? His assest light plan is to get rid of all the stores. And when you buy a companies debt, like Eddie has, it makes you first in line when the company goes BK. He knows what he is doing but what he is not doing is trying to keep the retail stores alive.

Please read and understand how hedge funds work and make money. They (hedge funds) are the reason for so many retail companies going BK. They buy up the shares, put the company in massive debt to fund other projects (think Seritage) and then walk away with what assets are left.

And I guess that every other financial person on the planet is stupid for not seeing what Eddie is seeing. They aren't investing because they understand it is a losing game

@cak It is always sad to see Eddie defenders pop up here. Why do you keep doing it? Is it because you are a higher up and you don't want to lose your cushy job? Or are you one of those idiots that bought a bunch of stock in hopes for a big sell off if it goes up a couple of dollars?

Good article. Source is http://mtstandard.com/opinion/editorial/sears-ceo-eddie-lampert-behind-kmart-decimation/article_fa2f4528-00a8-5524-9d54-9d1a172be1c1.html

@cak - EBITDA is financial malarkey. EBITDA is not a financial measure recognized in generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). Because EBITDA (and its variations) are not measures generally accepted under U.S. GAAP, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission requires that companies registering securities with it (and when filing its periodic reports) reconcile EBITDA to net income in order to avoid misleading investors.

Your screed on Saint Eddie and his transformation is pure malarkey as well!

Eddie Lampert is doing his best to transform Sears, maybe you don't realize it but he owns more than 50% of all the shares (and a lot of warrants that will be worth 0$ if the company goes bankrupt) , so your theory doesn't make any sense.

He could have closed all the stores years ago and profit from the real estate but he didn't because he is transforming the company preserving as many jobs as possible into a more asset light business.

You say he makes the company pays double-digit interest rates on the loans he gave.Actually it's 11%.

Maybe you don't know but SHLD bonds are traded on open markets with a huge discount because NOBODY wants to buy them and take the risk.So if it was really a good opportunity to make easy money why do they trade so low and still nobody buy them?

He is supporting the company lending it money, of course nothing is free when you take a huge risk lending money.But the interest rate he takes are simply what it's worth given the real risk.

Also he is the majority owner and makes the decisions, he doesn't have any interest in making the company bankrupt.He will profit a lot more when adjusted EBITDA become positive and the stock price increase.

i think he was trying to wind things down in 2007-08 when the real estate bubble burst. All the properties he thought had value were now worth a lot less. He had to take the last decade to let the real estate market get back but in that time retail started to tank and SHC debt sky rocketed and revenues fell. Now I feel he is just trying to get what he can.

This is true however it appears things didn't exactly go as planned. His hedge fund had lost billions. It's a shadow of its former self. There's no doubt Eddie will gain from the bankruptcy. However...the investment of money as well as the investment of the decades of his life couldn't be made up for by profits gained from the bankruptcy.

Personally I believe he planned to come out big from this deal but it was harder than he expected.

Actually, Eddie bought all of the Kmart debt and when they went BK he took that money and real estate and bought Sears. Other than that, spot on.

A very good summary, and answer to people who don't understand why Eddie wants the company to go toes-up

Pretty much what I've been saying, but thanks for reminding folks of it. :)