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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe $6 billion blunder that killed Sears
Would $6 billion in cash have kept Sears out of bankruptcy?
It sure wouldn't have hurt. Sears' ability to stay in business is in doubt after the company filed for bankruptcy protection this month.
Yet Sears spent $6 billion buying back its own shares since 2005 in a futile effort to help support its stock price. The stock plunged more than 99% in value, from a high of $143.91 in 2007 to less than $1 a share a couple of weeks before its bankruptcy filing. In bankruptcy, the shares are essentially worthless.
"If they had put $6 billion into upgrading stores and website development, they could be in a very different position right now," said William Lazonick, a retired University of Massachusetts economics professor and an expert in share repurchases. "They could be in a much better position to compete in the changing world of retail."
Sears could have used the money to reduce its debt burden and provide the working capital needed to keep the company out of bankruptcy.
The company had more than $5 billion debt on the books at the time of the bankruptcy filing. Ahead of the filing, Sears chairman and primary shareholder Eddie Lampert had proposed a plan to sell assets and renegotiate debt down to $1.2 billion, which he argued was all Sears could afford.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/the-dollar6-billion-blunder-that-killed-sears/ar-BBP7kGI?li=BBnbfcN
Doodley
(9,092 posts)CurtEastPoint
(18,644 posts)JHB
(37,160 posts)Who could possibly have foreseen that? It's a good thing no executives were richly rewarded for such blindness and blunder.
(add about 50 more of those)
Calculating
(2,955 posts)It was always about short term stuff like the current stock price and their quarterly earnings. Obviously it would hurt their bottom line in the short term to invest money into improving their web business. Shareholders would have a fit and the stock would be punished in the next Earnings Report. Because of such factors they never bothered to invest in the future, and purely focused on milking the company for short term profits until there was nothing left to milk.
Sad really, Sears could have literally been Amazon if they had just taken online commerce seriously early on.
WhiteTara
(29,715 posts)that drove his policy. Real time fail of stupid book.
Sherman A1
(38,958 posts)"Most Wounds are Self-Inflicted"
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)turbinetree
(24,703 posts)no fore thought, no plan to put forth accept mergers with other companies in the spread sheet, consolidation of assets, with no plan..........................but he had one plan.....................fucking the pensioner's, while get got his................fucking vulture capitalist, just like Bain, Trump, you can go down the list of hedge funds or fraudsters that have in some cases just fucked people over.................
Yavin4
(35,439 posts)And that's what its all about. Not running a company well.