Sears Dumps E-Commerce Chief

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Maybe Sears Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: SHLD), parent of Sears and Kmart, had a rough holiday in terms of e-commerce sales. The company’s management may never say. For some reason, though, the huge retailer either pushed its e-commerce chief out the door or he left of her own accord. Since nothing was said about his departure, the former may be more likely.

According to a filing with the SEC:

On December 17, 2014, Imran Jooma resigned as Executive Vice President and President, Online, Marketing, Pricing and Financial Services of Sears Holdings Corporation, effective February 6, 2015.

Jooma’s job is important enough that he is listed as one of the most senior executives at the company.

While CEO Eddie Lampert has a habit of pushing executives out the door, it is rare that one has gone so secretly.

Sears not only has to struggle with brick-and-mortar sales; it continues to be pressured by e-commerce leader Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), as well as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT), at least. There is an army of other retailers that rely on online sales as well to offset falling store sales.

Sears is nothing if not desperate, as same-store sales and revenues plunge. For the quarter reported on December 4:

Sears Holdings Corporation announced financial results for its third quarter ended November 1, 2014 in line with the third quarter estimate provided on November 7, 2014. Net loss attributable to Sears Holdings’ shareholders was $548 million ($5.15 loss per diluted share) for the third quarter of 2014, compared to $534 million ($5.03 loss per diluted share) for the prior year third quarter. Domestic Adjusted EBITDA was $(296) million for the third quarter of 2014, compared to $(310) million in the prior year third quarter.

The retailer is running low on money. In September, Sears Holdings received a $400 million loan from Lampert’s hedge fund.

The problems at Sears are growing rapidly. Given the departure of its e-commerce head, those problems may extend to its online operations.

ALSO READ: Are Online Holiday Sales Up Enough?

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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