Sears (SHLD) Sacks Its CEO, Lampert Lays Off Blame

Retail

Published: January 28, 2008 6:16 am

Sears (SHLD) controlling shareholder Eddie Lampert has no one but himself to blame for the disaster created by putting together two weak retailers, Sears and K-Mart, to try to make on strong one.

Lampert did pass the buck by keelhauling Sears CEO Aylwin B. Lewis who will leave Sears ASAP.

In the official announcement, Edward S. Lampert, chairman of Sears Holdings said, "We’ve accomplished a great deal under Aylwin’s leadership and we are very grateful for his commitment to Sears during a critical time in the company’s history." In other words, I needed to blame someone for the disaster and Aylwin was the best I could do.

Sears shares have fallen apart in the last few months. They have dropped from over $195 to $99 and recently fell as low as $84.72.

Lampert came up with the clever idea of putting together large retailers. It should have helped sourcing, gotten better prices for goods and services to be sold at the stores, and allowed the company to close weak outlets. Instead the company found that nothing had changed. Consumers wanted to go to Wal-Mart (WMT) and Best Buy (BBY) and would not shop at Sears and K-Mart even if they were within walking distance.

Sears recently announced that it would create more autonomous operating units and brought in a chief for the company’s online operations.

None of it works if the brands are bad. K-Mart and Sears are at the bottom of the barrel.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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