- While Sears Holdings (NASDAQ:SHLD) reported another quarterly loss and promised a new round of unprofitable store closings a few days ago, it was a blog post by CEO Eddie Lampert that stole the show during earnings week.
- Lampert maintains that it wasn't only e-commerce and the explosion of Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) that led to the dismantling of Sears, but the heavy pension obligations the company faced due to historically low interest rates.
- "Had the Company been able to employ those billions of dollars in its operations, we would have been in a better position to compete with other large retail companies, many of which don’t have large pension plans, and thus have not been required to allocate billions of dollars to these liabilities," Lampert wrote.
- Some retail analysts have noted that the pension wildcard has been a known variable for quite a while.
- Sears ended the week at $1.25 vs. the 52-week trading range of $1.07 to $7.87.
- Looking at the full department store sector, the underperformance of Sears stands out even more. Over the last 52 weeks, Kohl's (NYSE:KSS) +52%, Macy's (NYSE:M) +44%, TJX Companies (NYSE:TJX) +42%, Nordstrom (NYSE:JWN) +40% and Dillard's (NYSE:DDS) +29% have all put up some impressive share price gains as the thinned-out herd and e-commerce investments have led to some sales gains.
- Now read: Sears Holdings: Sales Improvement At The Cost Of Gross Margins
Original article