Sears Loss Widens as Seven-Year Revenue Decline Continues

By Lauren Coleman-Lochner  

Sears Holdings Corp. (SHLD), the retailer controlled by billionaire hedge-fund manager Edward Lampert, posted a wider second-quarter loss as sales decreased for the 30th straight quarter.
The net loss expanded to $573 million, or $5.39 a share, from $194 million, or $1.83, a year earlier, the Hoffman Estates, Illinois-based company said today in a statement. Sales fell to $8 billion from $8.9 billion. The year-earlier figures include Lands’ End, the clothing retailer Sears spun off in April. That accounted for $330 million of the revenue decline, Sears said.
Lampert, who is Sears’s chief executive officer as well as its largest shareholder, has been selling and spinning off assets to raise cash as he works to
bolster the retailer’s digital and rewards programs. He’s said he envisions Sears as a merchant with fewer stores that is focused on sales to its loyalty-program members.
“They’ve tried so many things,” Matt McGinley, managing director at International Strategy & Investment Group, said in an interview before the results were released. “The bottom line result is consistently still increasingly negative.” McGinley, based in New York, recommends selling the shares.
Sears rose 1.3 percent to $35.95 yesterday in New York. The shares have slid 9.5 percent this year.

Source: Sears Holdings Corp.

Edward Lampert, who is Sears’s chief executive officer as well as its largest... Read More

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Sales at the retailer have declined as it closed stores and unloaded businesses, including the spinoff of the smaller-format Sears Hometown & Outlet Stores unit in 2012 and the sale of five leases in Canada for C$400 million ($366 million) last year.
Sears also said today the company plans to explore options with lenders to achieve more long-term capital-structure flexibility in the coming six to 12 months.
In May, the company said it is exploring options for its remaining stake in Sears Canada after years of losses. Sears reduced its stake in the Toronto-based retailer to 51 percent from 95 percent in 2012.
Because of previous store sales, the Canadian unit has been “stripped” of its best assets, McGinley said. “It’s just really the carcass of a dying retailer.”
The company today said it has had talks with third parties about options for the Sears Auto Center business, including partnerships.
Sears “just doesn’t have the same resonance, it doesn’t have the same level of importance to people as it had 30 years ago,” McGinley said.
Sears last week named Alasdair James, a former Tesco Plc executive, to head its Kmart business, which has struggled to compete with the larger discount chains that lure shoppers with groceries and lower prices.