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  • Sears' Nifty Purchase: Footstar Footwear [View article]
    Does anyone know how people are coming up w 45B valuations for SHLD. Whitney Tilson, for ex, was on CNBC claiming that he is buying dollars for 30c when buying SHLD for $100.

    The retail operation is pretty visible at 1.5B of FCF, but how are people coming up w these real estate/brand valuations, does anyone know? Todd, you have been hyping this stock for a long time, but beyond the Lampert factor what does this company have going for it?

    Also Lampert is the man but as of yet he has not been able to deploy capital to grow the business. If the business is dying and all he can do is buyback stock or payback debt, this is not a very valuable operating business and probably isnt worth more than the 10X FCF its valued at right now. And you either run the business or sell the assets, you can't do both, and Lampert has been reluctant to do the latter, even for underperforming stores it seems.

    Its just a bit frustrating bc all these value guys Pabrai, Tilson, not to mention Lampert love this co but it seems like a crap company.

    You look at Penney for example and it is making about the same amount of money on about 20B of sales. Sears is just a real crap company, horribly run, the stores are in shambles, the merchandise hanging on the racks looks like it's already been worn. You'd be crazy to doubt Lampert but have you been in a Sears store? You would think they could at least pay someone to tidy up the racks and not have it look like a garage sale. I don't know why anyone shops there, the clothes are overpriced and the quality is just terrible. Lampert is reorganizing, etc, etc, but why do you need to reorganize to implement such fundamental changes in the stores?

    SHLD is like a relic, 3000 stores back from the 60s when Americans had no choice at all, and shopped Sears bc there was no alternative. Now you look, almost any store is better than Sears.

    As to the Kraftsman, Kenmore whatever-what is the big deal? A toolset is a toolset, a fridge is a fridge, whether its called Kenmore or Whirlpool or Maytag, I can get one in BBY, I can get one anywhere, I don't have to go to Sears because I need a Kenmore.
    May 01 22:26 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment
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