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Sears fourth quarter earnings were below already-lowered analyst projections, with net income down 47 percent to $426 million and revenue down 6.8 percent to $15.07 billion. Same store sales fell 4 percent
at Sears and 5.2 percent at Kmart.
The company, controlled by investor Edward Lampert, will work to “improve and tighten our management of costs and inventory levels in 2008,” according to interim president and CEO Bruce Johnson (via TheStreet.com). Sears Holdings recently announced a restructuring, which will position the company to navigate the “difficult conditions that lie ahead,” Johnson said.
While analysts do not predict any significant change to the downward trajectory of the company in the near term, Deutsche Bank analyst Bill Dreher wrote in a Jan. 23 report that the shift in strategic focus could “improve transparency and help investors better understand the value of the individual units,” according to Bloomberg.
Richard Jaffe, an analyst at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., pointed out that Lampert is not a retailer and said he is simply pretending to be one. He said that in the retail industry, history has shown it is nearly impossible to take a “distressed” business and turn it around.
When Sears announced its restructuring in January - at which time Lampert ousted CEO Alwyn Lewis and installed Bruce Johnson as interim CEO - retail consultant Howard Davidowitz questioned how Sears could embark on an ambitious restoration plan without a full-time chief leading the charge.
Davidowitz, who has long been skeptical of Lampert’s ability to run a major retailer, said at the time that the company was in a “free fall” and that, with the announcement of Johnson’s departure, things for the company look more chaotic than before.
The Spanish Radio Association says Arbitron still has not addressed its concerns and research questions regarding the PPM and how “Hispanics are recruited and represented, and how the PPM panel is maintained.”
The SRA has been working with Arbitron in…
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Fox…
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Conducted for…
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