Sears Holdings Corp, the owner of Kenmore appliances and the Kmart and Sears retail chains, will appoint executives to run each of its business lines after saying profit may decline for a third straight quarter.
Each unit's performance will have a designated leader and a group of executive advisers to oversee performance, Sears spokesman Chris Brathwaite said on Saturday in an e-mail. He didn't give details on what each division would do.
The company has Lands' End clothing stores and sells Craftsman tools and DieHard batteries at the Sears and Kmart chains.
The decision followed Sears's disclosure last week that fourth-quarter profit may drop by more than 50 percent after US holiday sales fell.
The biggest US department store company has reported declining sales in stores open at least a year every quarter since chairman Edward Lampert combined Kmart and Sears, Roebuck & Co in March 2005.
Sears, which declined 39 percent last year in NASDAQ trading, will give "greater control, authority and autonomy" to the individual businesses, Brathwaite said in the statement.
Since having put the retailer together, Lampert has centralized functions, giving executives responsibilities that stretched across the company.
The retailer, which blamed increased competition and "unfavorable economic conditions" for the drop in fourth-quarter profit, posted declines in the second and third quarters, with third-quarter net income declining 99 percent.
Corwin Yulinsky, executive vice president of customer strategy, and senior vice president Dev Mukherjee briefed executives on the plans on Thursday, the Wall Street Journal said on Saturday.
Lampert, 45, has tried to lure customers by extending products over the whole organization, adding Lands' End clothing to Sears stores and Craftsman tools at Kmart.
He boosted technology investments and introduced advertising campaigns this year for both chains while telling shareholders at the company's annual meeting in May that fixing retail was "a priority."
Some analysts say he has underinvested in the stores for too long.
"Once people decide they're not going to shop there anymore, it's hard to get them to come back," Jon Fisher, a portfolio manager with Fifth Third Asset Management, said on Jan. 14.
His firm manages US$22 billion in assets, including Sears stock.
The retailer has also lost a senior executive, chief customer officer John Walden, who is no longer with the company after a year at Hoffman Estates, Illinois-based Sears, Brathwaite said.
Of the seven analysts that cover the 122-year-old Sears, only one has a "buy" recommendation, while four advocate selling the shares, data compiled by Bloomberg showed.
The remainder advise holding the stock.
Lampert's ESL Investments Inc bought Kmart debt during the discount chain's bankruptcy and became its largest shareholder after the retailer's emergence from court protection in May 2003.
Lampert engineered Kmart's US$12.3 billion acquisition of Sears, Roebuck less than three years later to form Sears Holding Corp. His funds hold 48 percent of the company, Bloomberg data showed.
WAITING GAME: The US has so far only offered a ‘best rate tariff,’ which officials assume is about 15 percent, the same as Japan, a person familiar with the matter said Taiwan and the US have completed “technical consultations” regarding tariffs and a finalized rate is expected to be released soon, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference yesterday, as a 90-day pause on US President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs is set to expire today. The two countries have reached a “certain degree of consensus” on issues such as tariffs, nontariff trade barriers, trade facilitation, supply chain resilience and economic security, Lee said. They also discussed opportunities for cooperation, investment and procurement, she said. A joint statement is still being negotiated and would be released once the US government has made
NEW GEAR: On top of the new Tien Kung IV air defense missiles, the military is expected to place orders for a new combat vehicle next year for delivery in 2028 Mass production of Tien Kung IV (Sky Bow IV) missiles is expected to start next year, with plans to order 122 pods, the Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) latest list of regulated military material showed. The document said that the armed forces would obtain 46 pods of the air defense missiles next year and 76 pods the year after that. The Tien Kung IV is designed to intercept cruise missiles and ballistic missiles to an altitude of 70km, compared with the 60km maximum altitude achieved by the Missile Segment Enhancement variant of PAC-3 systems. A defense source said yesterday that the number of
‘CRUDE’: The potential countermeasure is in response to South Africa renaming Taiwan’s representative offices and the insistence that it move out of Pretoria Taiwan is considering banning exports of semiconductors to South Africa after the latter unilaterally downgraded and changed the names of Taiwan’s two representative offices, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. On Monday last week, the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation unilaterally released a statement saying that, as of April 1, the Taipei Liaison Offices in Pretoria and Cape Town had been renamed the “Taipei Commercial Office in Johannesburg” and the “Taipei Commercial Office in Cape Town.” Citing UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, it said that South Africa “recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole
Taiwanese exports to the US are to be subject to a 20 percent tariff starting on Thursday next week, according to an executive order signed by US President Donald Trump yesterday. The 20 percent levy was the same as the tariffs imposed on Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh by Trump. It was higher than the tariffs imposed on Japan, South Korea and the EU (15 percent), as well as those on the Philippines (19 percent). A Taiwan official with knowledge of the matter said it is a "phased" tariff rate, and negotiations would continue. "Once negotiations conclude, Taiwan will obtain a better
RSS