Sears gets out of bankruptcy alive

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: CNN Business

White Plains, New York (CNN Business)Sears lives.

Bankruptcy Court Judge Robert Drain approved the sale of most of the retailer's assets to a hedge fund controlled by Eddie Lampert, the company's chairman, for $5.2 billion. The decision will keep 425 stores open and save the jobs of 45,000 employees.

In reading his decision Thursday afternoon, Drain rejected arguments from a committee of creditors, including landlords and major vendors, who had urged the court to shut the company down and liquidate the assets. The creditors, who are owed more than $3 billion by Sears, argued that closing the company was the best way to return the most money. They also argued the sales process was unfair and set up so that no one other than Lampert could buy the company.

Attorneys for Sears and Lampert had argued the sales process was fair and that keeping the company open would be better for all involved.

The 133-year old company was once the largest and most important retailer in the nation, and the largest private sector employer. But it has struggled for decades, losing business not only to online rivals but also to big box retailers who offered lower prices and a wider selection of goods. It had lost $12 billion since its last profitable year in 2010 through its bankruptcy filing last October.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/07/investing/sears-decision/index.html

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(Short article)

[richdj25]

1. Very happy for the employees...

Trump will most likely try to take credit for this save.

[SWBTATTReg]

9. Really. I have a friend that works (or worked) there. I haven't seen him in a while to ask ...

but I think he retired out a couple of years ago. I hope so, and I hope he ran w/ the money.

[ailsagirl]

12. Me, too!

Welcome to DU, richdj25!!

[cstanleytech]

2. I don't see them surviving or atleast not unless they can find away to attract customers to come

into their stores rather than shop online and that's going to be hard for them to do considering they are operating the stores with skeleton crews and customers can be discouraged if they cannot get help when they need it.
Not to mention a significant number of their stores look outdated and need major remodels.

[rickford66]

3. Rivals offered a "wider selection of goods"

At one time Sears sold just about everything available under the Sun. Maybe not automobiles, but I might be wrong. As kids we couldn't wait for the Christmas catalog. If you had a problem with something shipped to you, they said keep it and they sent another.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

5. Oh, they did that too.

When Sears Sold Cars: The Strange Tale Of The Kaiser Henry J

hoonthatsc
4/17/13 11:20am

With all of the corporate bean-counting, market predictions, and sterilization that occurs within the automotive industry today, it is sometimes easy to forget how weird and convoluted things could quickly become "back then". No other car exemplifies this volatile complexity more aptly than the Kaiser-Frazer Henry J.

{picture can't be displayed}

Conceived by the indomitable Henry J. Kaiser as a cheap and compact alternative to other American offerings, the curvaceous Henry J was first presented for sale in September 1950, after an earlier press reveal in Chicago. The car was priced at an unusually low $1300, due to the car being developed at the behest of a government loan. In order to turn a profit at this price point, the Henry J was built with a “Spartan” mindset, eschewing many simple features that were standard on its contemporaries. The seats were composed of tightly woven paper strands, the dash was a simple painted metal affair, it featured no glove compartments, and even neglected to include a trunk lid! Power (or lack thereof) came from a wheezy 68 HP inline-4 and a still woefully-inadequate 80 HP inline-6. Despite the relatively progressive styling and competitive price, the Henry J was not a showroom star. To alleviate some of his sales issues, Henry Kaiser turned to Sears, Roebuck and Co., and proposed to sell a rebadged Henry J under the already-established Sears automotive accessory line, “Allstate”.

{picture can't be displayed}

While the Allstate was indeed a thinly-disguised Henry J, a few minor cosmetic changes stood out when the two nearly identical cars were compared. For choosing an Allstate over a Henry J, the buyer got: the engine painted a lovely Sears-blue, an interior done up in an exclusive plaid scheme for the headliner and seats (I love me some tartan!), and best of all, a Tucker–influenced front clip, penned straight from Alex Tremulis, the man who designed the legendary Tucker Torpedo. All this splendor was sold along with pre-installed Sears-brand spark plugs, battery, and bulbs. Fancy!
....

So, let’s take a step back. We have an American businessman with an oh-so-German last name, building funky little American cars in Japan and Israel, all while selling some through Sears-Roebuck department stores under a different name.

You can’t make this stuff up.

This is reposted from my blog, ThePistonRing

When Sears Sold Cars: The Strange Tale of the Kaiser Henry J

With some modifications, they could be quick:

[rickford66]

6. Thanks. I thought someone would know.

I remember the Henry J. Lots of those bodies were reborn as NHRA Gassers.

[BumRushDaShow]

10. They sold houses too! Example below-

http://money.com/money/4701144/sears-roebuck-catalog-house-reddit/

Come to think of it - this may be a way for them to retool and go back to some of their roots. There is a TOTAL lack of "affordable housing" in many areas around the country. You have a 94-year old former President still trying to help to construct non-McMansion homes through his "Habit for Humanity".

Why not have Sears get some construction folks together to re-create these sorts of "house kits" (pre-fabs) so that people can literally start to rebuild some of our cities where so much old housing has been razed leaving empty lots. I know that here in Philly and other cities, "land banks" have been set up as part of a public-private partnership, and these parcels of land could potentially have this type of construction. It would serve as a training ground for a whole generation of young craftsmen and other trades, made easier if all the "pieces" are there and you just do the labor!

When I used to watch HBO's Boardwalk Empire, one of the subplots involving the (crazy) former Prohibition agent Mueller (ha), was his building a "Sears" home - http://www.searshomes.org/index.php/2018/03/13/boardwalk-empire-and-sears-kit-homes/ (the article notes the show-writers interchanged the names "Sears" and "Bennett" to represent what he was building since they had the "Bennett" kit catalog but "Sears" is obviously more well known).

(from Boardwalk Empire)


Toll Brothers and other big builders don't want to build anything less than a McMansion so someone needs to fill that void!

[ailsagirl]

13. I did not know that

Interesting!

[groundloop]

4. It took some very bad management decisions for Sears to get to this point....

Out of any retailer, Sears was probably best situated to take advantage of the up and coming internet (Sears already had a booming mail-order business, it should have been relatively easy to take that online). Those bad decisions by upper management have, as always, hurt working families.

[mpcamb]

7. This about an overlapping real estate co. Eddie Lampert has that owns Sears locales.

He'd go bust if Sears went under.

[ChiTownDenny]

8. So the guy who drove Sears into bankruptcy

will now lead the company out of bankruptcy? Perfectly sensible.

[Yavin4]

11. Frying pan to fire. Working for a hedge fund can be terrible.

May be better to be unemployed than be employed for less money, doing more work, and taking on more stress.

[msongs]

14. hedge fund sees there is still some value to plunder before dumping the corpse nt

[Maxheader]

15. What am I missing here..?

Bankruptcy Court Judge Robert Drain approved the sale of most of the retailer's assets to a hedge fund controlled by Eddie Lampert, the company's chairman, for $5.2 billion. The decision will keep 425 stores open and save the jobs of 45,000 employees.

So eddie has 5.2 billion? Did he attain that wealth by reducing sears profitability?

Did he expect to get a good "deal"..for his 'efforts'...?

Just don't trust these 1%ers...

[BumRushDaShow]

17. I don't think all of that was as his

I think he got a group to scrape together enough to buy it.

[Raine]

16. Thank Goodness!

I'm happy for the employees plus I'm sentimental about Sears because my father worked there until he retired, so this is good news!

[akraven]

18. They were the first "major retailer" to come in up here. Now they're gone.

But I still want the catalog! (We came up in 1967, and the Sears Catalog was my best friend).

[shellyleit]

19. Trump will take credit for this

as soon as he hears about it.