In a letter to shareholders ahead of the company’s annual meeting, Lampert wrote that recent financial decisions have given Sears Holdings the capital required for recovery. This includes $2.4 billion from financial decisions last year, and upcoming decisions may increase the size of the war chest.
In the letter, he was specific about how the money will be used:
Taken together, these new funds will allow us to invest in long-term strategies to enhance our members’ experiences and expand our integrated retail platforms.
Sears and Kmart have already moved beyond the old and sorely outdated traditional store network models. Every day, we are building richer, deeper relationships with our members through Shop Your Way, Buy Online Pickup In Store, In-Vehicle Pickups & Returns, Digital Kiosks and more.
He neglected to mention that all these tactics, or ones very like them, have been part of ongoing transformation of America’s largest retailers. Sears Holdings’ plans are nothing more than a game of catch-up.
Lampert’s assumption has to be based on his ability to take market share in the general retail industry already dominated by Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT). There are also a number of chains about the size of Sears that also continue to scratch for a portion of the same market. Sears has to battle companies that already have modest position they can defend based on size, or ones that are desperate like J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (NYSE: JCP).
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Some measure of investor scorn and skepticism about Lampert’s plans is already in the share price of Sears Holdings. His comments triggered no rally. Sears stockholders must have wanted a sign that Lampert’s plans have even a tiny chance of succeeding. Over the past five years, the share price of the company has fallen 59%, against a 109% improvement in the S&P 500.
It would seem that not a single thing Lampert wrote changed any minds about the future of Sears Holdings.
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