Sears Sells Craftsman Brand, to Close 150 Stores

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UncleCliffy'sDaddy said:
And all those Sears executives who lead them to the trash heap probably got huge bonuses and/or golden parachutes. Welcome to corporate America....
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Yeah, those Sears executives are way overpaid. Their highest paid employee, the chief executive officer, makes about 46% (including stock options) of what Meyers Leonard makes. What the heck is Sears thinking?
 
oldfisherman said:
Yeah, those Sears executives are way overpaid. Their highest paid employee, the chief executive officer, makes about 46% (including stock options) of what Meyers Leonard makes. What the heck is Sears thinking?
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Well, Meyers is doing a little better.
 
SlyPokerDog said:
It's amazing how close Sears came to getting it right and being the biggest company on the planet.

At one point in the 1980s they owned:

Allstate Insurance
Dean Witter
Caldwell Baker
Discover Credit Card

and shockingly enough...

Prodigy, this first nationwide company to offer internet access.

They could have been Amazon before Amazon.

They could have sold you a house, financed it, insured it, and filled it with furnishings and appliances.

RIP to a once great American corporation.
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I remember this. They were kind a dumb. I had a Discover Card and when I moved, I never thought to notify them of the change in address. Well I owed some small amout
that road the books until I tried to use the card. Dang they had it on a confiscate list, then they put a credit collection on me.

Geez I would have paid the friggin bill if I had known about. Not only did the lose the sale but ran a customer off too, damn near 30 years ago.
 
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Quote" The sale and closures come amid Sears CEO Edward Lampert’s years long effort to revive Sears, including a recent $1 billion injection into the struggling retailer".
Nine times out of ten it is the CEO that gets sacked for a monumental fuck up like this He will probably get a golden parachute
 
So, we were in the Sears/Kmart combo on Eastern Ave in Henderson a few months ago and every cashier and customer service girl was black. It is weird how stuff like that stands out even in this day and age.

Anyway, I hate the store and it is always a ghost town considering the size of it. I told my wife that when not if it closed the black employment rate would skyrocket here.

I just saw on the news that it is on the closure list.

I feel bad for them but the store sucks.
 
Hobbesarable said:
The cash-strapped retailer will sell its iconic Craftsman brand to Stanley for about $900 million


By Anne Steele
Updated Jan. 5, 2017 12:31 p.m. ET

Sears Holdings Corp. said it would close another 150 stores and sell its Craftsman tool brand for $900 million, as the cash-strapped retailer continues to shrink and battle slumping sales.

Sears is flipping the Craftsman brand to Stanley Black & Decker Inc., and it will license back the ability to sell Craftsman-branded products royalty-free for 15 years after the deal’s closing. The acquisition gives Stanley the rights to develop, manufacture and sell Craftsman-branded products outside of Sears.

At present, just 10% of Craftsman-branded products are sold outside of Sears. Stanley Black & Decker said the deal will help boost Craftsman sales in untapped channels.

“We intend to invest in the brand and rapidly increase sales through these new channels, including retail, industrial, mobile and online,” said Stanley Black & Decker Chief Executive James Loree. Stanley also recently signed a $1.95 billion deal to buy Newell Brands Inc.’s tools business.

A Sears spokesman confirmed the unlimited lifetime warranty on Craftsman hand tools made in the U.S.—“a hallmark of the brand for generations”—will be kept in place.

On Wednesday, Sears announced sweeping closures of 150 of its namesake and Kmart stores—which it called “a difficult but necessary step as we take actions to strengthen the company’s operations and fund its transformation.”

Many of the stores slated to be shut down have struggled financially for years but have been kept open to maintain local jobs in the hopes they would turn around. “But in order to meet our objective of returning to profitability, we have to make tough decisions and will continue to do so, which will give our better performing stores a chance at success,” the company said.

Shares of Sears jumped 3.5% in afternoon trading, while shares of Stanley rose 1.8%.

The sale and closures come amid Sears CEO Edward Lampert’s yearslong effort to revive Sears, including a recent $1 billion injection into the struggling retailer.

Mr. Lampert said the deal represents a significant step in the company’s transformation to a membership-focused business model. He called Stanley “a great owner that is committed to expanding Craftsman and helping it to reach its potential outside of its current channels,” he said.

On Wednesday, Sears said it obtained a $500 million loan secured by mortgages on 46 properties from affiliates of ESL Investments Inc., the hedge fund run by Mr. Lampert. That is in addition to a $300 million secured letter of credit that the retailer received from ESL affiliates last week.

ESL last week also entered into a nonbinding term sheet for a $200 million unsecured loan to Seritage Growth Properties, a real-estate investment trust that largely consists of Sears and Kmart stores.

Also Thursday, Sears said sales during the quarter so far have continued to be challenging. The company estimates same-store sales at Sears and Kmart for the first two months of the fourth quarter have declined 12% to 13%.

Stanley’s Mr. Loree said his company will expand its manufacturing footprint in the U.S., noting that the firm has “increased our manufacturing head count by 40% in the past three years.”

Stanley Black & Decker will pay Sears $525 million at closing, $250 million after three years, and annual payments on new Stanley Black & Decker Craftsman sales for 15 years. The license granted to Sears will remain royalty-free for 15 years, then 3% thereafter.

Stanley Black & Decker expects the sale of Craftsman branded products to contribute $100 million in sales annually for the next 10 years. The deal is expected to increase earnings by 10 cents to 15 cents a share in the first year, increasing to 35 cents to 45 cents by year five and 70 cents to 80 cents by year 10, excluding $20 million of deal-related costs.
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This is Awesome for my company. we have been tracking it for a while We have the Stanley contract for all thier bent needs, like handle bars, etc.
And fuck Sears. They should have kept up with the times. Go into a store. they use old 80's registers and shit.
 
http://www.businessinsider.com/sears-failing-stores-closing-edward-lampert-bankruptcy-chances-2017-1

When I was a kid the old Sears Roebuck store on Grand Ave (now MLK Blvd.....funny how if you plant trees up the middle of an avenue, it magically becomes a boulevard) was our go to store for pretty much everything (except for "plain pocket" jeans and Chuck Taylor knockoffs at Penney's). The same pretty much held true for the first 15-20 years of my marriage. With money tight, Sears (and Monkey Wards) was still the place we could get most everything AND charge it. As much as we hated doing it, our options were limited. I've probably shopped at Sears maybe 3 times in the past 15 years. They just haven't kept up, actually (and stubbornly) going in a direction that is mind boggling counterproductive. Now, their CEO wants their priority/funds generator to be data mining? How the hell can you mine and sell data if you have no customers??? I'm glad my data is no longer going into their system, and as sorry as I truly feel for the employees, I have no problem seeing this shortsighted American icon fall by the roadside. The absolute irony is that they were the original Amazon and blew it......
 
It's hard for businesses to adapt to disruptive changes, and it's very very hard for big businesses. Sears lasted longer than probably 99.9% of businesses.

barfo
 
Sears has done a lot of things right in the past, or they would not have become as big as they did. However, along the way they made mistakes, which all companies do.

They made a mistake with me. It was not what they did, by how they did it. Sears took on the attitude that they were so big, they could get away with anything, with anyone. Sears started treating people like crap. This included mistreating their own employees, customers and suppliers. I felt I was mistreated as a customer, so they lost me for good.

What is not common knowledge is how they mistreated their suppliers. Sears would dominate the production line of the factories they did business with. And then Sears would make demands to cheapen the product. At some point, many of the suppliers would confront Sears and refuse their demands. Sears simply pulled out and moved on to the next victim/factory. Take a look at any product line, and see how many different companies made that product for them over the years. The short time working with suppliers also tells a part of the story of how Sears failed.

The result was, Sears put a lot of USA factories out of business. The word got out, and many factories refused to do business with them.
 
Sears was good to me. Gave me a job in the late 70's during high school and college and treated me well. I will be forever grateful.
 
tlongII said:
Sears was good to me. Gave me a job in the late 70's during high school and college and treated me well. I will be forever grateful.
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There was a time when Sears was one of the best companies in the country to work for. They took good care of their employees. Sears made some of their early employees millionaires, much like Microsoft has done. Plus the benefits where great.

But around the time you worked for them, things started to change, and conditions gradually declined.
 
oldfisherman said:
There was a time when Sears was one of the best companies in the country to work for. They took good care of their employees. Sears made some of their early employees millionaires, much like Microsoft has done. Plus the benefits where great.

But around the time you worked for them, things started to change, and conditions gradually declined.
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Funny how time moves on, the player change, new winners replace the new losers.
 
I worked at a Sears in the electronics department for about a year, right around the time they had made the deal to acquire Kmart. That wasn't their first or last mistake, but it was arguably their most damaging. One thing that always remembered and appreciated was my coworkers that had been employed there for decades. They always talked about the good old days when Sears was the go-to retailer. Good people. The other thing I will remember is that HR screwed up my commission structure so that I was getting paid the same rates that the "lifers" whom had it earned by working there for so long. Made bank for about 6 months during the holiday season until they realized their mistake. That was cool.

I feel for the people that are going to lose their jobs, although I can't necessarily say that I am surprised it happened after seeing it from the inside.
 
This is a pretty interesting story about it.

barfo
 
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