Re:The History of Sears Predicts Nearly Everything Amazon Is...
by wahern on Tuesday October 16, 2018 @04:00AM
(#18227529)
There are two doors. The door on the left leads to certain death. The door on the right leads to something unknown. Which door would you take?
Nobody can predict what the next market disruption will look like, although you can predict in broad strokes. But Sears had already been beaten by Wal-Mart by 1993. Cutting the catalog, moving to the suburbs, and several other moves were part of a de-risking and divestiture strategy intended to return money to shareholders.
At best it was, in retrospect, an admission of defeat. At worst it was horribly short-sighted. Either way it was bad leadership that squandered good will (and thus real value), and executives making millions shouldn't get a pass if only to make it clear what we expect of today's leaders.
If you want to cut your losses and dump all your money into Vanguard market funds, don't tell everybody you've discovered some great new investment strategy just so you can earn your bonuses over the next few quarters. That's what Sears did. If Sears wanted to unwind and die with dignity, there were much smarter ways to go about it that didn't hasten the destruction of shareholder value while raiding pensions. (And that's before Lampert.)
EDIT: OTOH, perhaps lying about your divestiture strategy is what you have to do to prevent a crash in price. Are there any MBAs or finance guys here who could chime in about potential strategies? Anyhow, it's just not cool =) It was Sears!
Nobody can predict what the next market disruption will look like, although you can predict in broad strokes. But Sears had already been beaten by Wal-Mart by 1993. Cutting the catalog, moving to the suburbs, and several other moves were part of a de-risking and divestiture strategy intended to return money to shareholders.
At best it was, in retrospect, an admission of defeat. At worst it was horribly short-sighted. Either way it was bad leadership that squandered good will (and thus real value), and executives making millions shouldn't get a pass if only to make it clear what we expect of today's leaders.
If you want to cut your losses and dump all your money into Vanguard market funds, don't tell everybody you've discovered some great new investment strategy just so you can earn your bonuses over the next few quarters. That's what Sears did. If Sears wanted to unwind and die with dignity, there were much smarter ways to go about it that didn't hasten the destruction of shareholder value while raiding pensions. (And that's before Lampert.)
EDIT: OTOH, perhaps lying about your divestiture strategy is what you have to do to prevent a crash in price. Are there any MBAs or finance guys here who could chime in about potential strategies? Anyhow, it's just not cool =) It was Sears!