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Ackman Aims at Target's Bulls Eye: Right on Time

Instead of whining, let's look at Ackman's two big issues:

Real Estate leverage - Just imagine what the value of the Ackman-proposed real estate spin-off company would look like if accomplished a year ago when commercial real estate was so much farther from the cliff upon which it so precipitously perched now. It would be in the dumps.

And Target Corporation, left with billions of extended lease payments on over-valued sale-leaseback real estate would have a much lower intrinsic value in the current marketplace.

His strategy also ignores the migration of demographics rendering store locations obsolete.

I've been down that road with my retail chain store company and it's a bummer. Ackman's proposal is blatantly selfish (read: good only for the short/mid-term).

Credit cards - a real boon to marketing intelligence as well as consumer bounce back. Target's higher default rate is due substantially to its more rigorous and aggressive write-off discipline. They are not doing badly in their management of this facet of the business.