https://www.wcvb.com/article/sears-t...uptcy/23769411
Or we can discuss how Eddie Lampert led a business that existed for over 110+ years into bankruptcy due to moronic moves and terrible ideas. Anyhow the sad fact is Sears has been limping towards death for nearly 2 decades and it began before the buyout from K-Mart that Lampert pushed through for $11 billion in 2004. K-Mart itself was struggling as well but not to the level that Sears was.
A fact that one person detailed years ago he advised Lampert and K-Mart to just wait til Sears headed into bankruptcy and buy the company for nothing or pick off the brands. Because the company was in trouble then. Of course as we saw Lampert didn't listen and believed that he could fix both companies problems merging them to compete against Wal-Mart. Which spurred this deal to happen. It was to defeat Wal-Mart which is the #1 retailer today. But the numbers are in the proof of what happened.
Sears itself had 900+ stores with 200,000+ workers in 2004. They had revenue of $31+ billion at one stage. By 2004 K-Mart had 2,600 stores itself and an unknown amount of workers at this point (so combined both companies had 3,500 stores !) 14 years later the 2 companies combined run 1200+ stores and have 140,000+ workers. But have announced more store closings and layoffs.
So as the company went down the toilet , Lampert's style of ownership as CEO was named as a reason it happened. There was knocks he would stay at his home and do meetings with his board there. If the company did a plan and it didn't have huge results to start ; Lampert would pull the plug. Then there was his stupid belief in Ayn Rand that had his division heads compete for money and resources ; believing that this type of fighting would lead to innovation. Instead it made things much worse.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/meet-th...to-bankruptcy/
But why did the board sit and allow Lampert for 14 years to stay on as CEO ? Did anyone not realize as the company went into the gutter that his leadership was not working ? Now he's gone but he quit as CEO. Which speaks volumes that he literally had to quit and was not fired by anyone on that K-Mart/Sears board .
In the end a company that existed for over 100+ yards was destroyed by terrible leadership. RIP SEARS.