by Adam Hartung | May 10, 2011 | Current Affairs, In the Whirlpool, Innovation, Leadership, Lifecycle
Sears is threatening to move its headquarters out of the Chicago area. It’s been in Chicago since the 1880s. Now the company Chairman is threatening to move its headquarters to another state, in order to find lower operating costs and lower taxes.
Predictably “Officals Scrambling to Keep Sears in Illinois” is the Chicago Tribune headlined. That is stupid. Let Sears go. Giving Sears subsidies would be tantamount to putting a 95 year old alcoholic, smoking paraplegic at the top of the heart/lung transplant list! When it comes to subsidies, triage is the most important thing to keep in mind. And honestly, Sears ain’t worth trying to save (even if subsidies could potentially do it!)
“Fast Eddie Lampert” was the hedge fund manager who created Sears Holdings by using his takeover of bankrupt KMart to acquire the former Sears in 2003. Although he was nothing more than a financier and arbitrager, Mr. Lampert claimed he was a retailing genius, having “turned around” Auto Zone. And he promised to turn around the ailing Sears. In his corner he had the modern “Mad Money” screaming investor advocate, Jim Cramer, who endorsed Mr. Lampert because…… the two were once in college togehter. Mr. Cramer promised investors would do well, because he was simply sure Mr. Lampert was smart. Even if he didn’t have a plan for fixing the company.
Sears had once been a retailing goliath, the originator of home shopping with the famous Sears catalogue, and a pioneer in financing purchases. At one time you could obtain all your insurance, banking and brokerage needs at a Sears, while buying clothes, tools and appliances. An innovator, Sears for many years was part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. But the world had shifted, Home Depot displaced Sears on the DJIA, and the company’s profits and revenues sagged as competitors picked apart the product lines and locations.
Simultaneously KMart had been destroyed by the faster moving and more aggressive Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart’s cost were lower, and its prices lower. Even though KMart had pioneered discount retailing, it could not compete with the fast growing, low cost Wal-Mart. When its bonds were worth pennies, Mr. Lampert bought them and took over the money-losing company.
By combining two losers, Mr. Lampert promised he would make a winner. How, nobody knew. There was no plan to change either chain. Just a claim that both were “great brands” that had within them other “great brands” like Martha Stewart (started before she was convicted and sent to jail), Craftsman and Kenmore. And there was a lot of real estate. Somehow, all those assets simlply had to be worth more than the market value. At least that’s what Mr. Lampert said, and people were ready to believe. And if they had doubts, they could listen to Jim Cramer during his daily Howard Beale impersonation.
Only they all were wrong.
Retailing had shifted. Smarter competitors were everywhere. Wal-Mart, Target, Dollar General, Home Depot, Best Buy, Kohl’s, JCPenney, Harbor Freight Tools, Amazon.com and a plethora of other compeltitors had changed the retail market forever. Likewise, manufacturers in apparel, appliances and tools had brough forward better products at better prices. And financing was now readily available from credit card companies.
Surely the real estate would be worth a fortune everyone thought. After all, there was so much of it. And there would never be too much retail space. And real estate never went down in value. At least, that’s what everyone said.
But they were wrong. Real estate was at historic highs compared to income, and ability to pay. Real estate was about to crater. And hardest hit in the commercial market was retail space, as the “great recession” wiped out home values, killed personal credit lines, and wiped out disposable income. Additionally, consumers increasingly were buying on-line instead of trudging off to stores fueling growth at Amazon and its peers rather than Sears – which had no on-line presence.
Those who were optimistic for Sears were looking backward. What had once been valuable they felt surely must be valuable again. But those looking forward could see that market shifts had rendered both KMart and Sears obsolete. They were uncompetitive in an increasingly more competitive marketplace. As competitors kept working harder, doing more, better, faster and cheaper Sears was not even in the game. The merger only made the likelihood of failure greater, because it made the scale fo change even greater.
The results since 2003 have been abysmal. Sales per store, a key retail benchmark, have declined every quarter since Mr. Lampert took over. In an effort to prove his financial acumen, Mr. Lampert led the charge for lower costs. And slash his management team did – cutting jobs at stores, in merchandising and everywhere. Stores were closed every quarter in an effort to keep cutting costs. All Mr. Lampert discussed were earnings, which he kept trying to keep from disintegrating. But with every quarter Sears has become smaller, and smaller. Now, Crains Chicago Business headlined, even the (in)famous chairman has to admit his past failure “Sears Chief Lampert: We Ought to be Doing a Lot Better.”
Sears once built, and owned, America’s tallest structure. But long ago Sears left the Sears Tower. Now it’s called the Willis Tower by the way – there is no Sears Tower any longer. Sears headquarters are offices in suburban Hoffman Estates, and are half empty. Eighty percent of the apparel merchandisers were let go in a recent move, taking that group to California where the outcome has been no better. Constant cost cutting does that. Makes you smaller, and less viable.
And now Sears is, well….. who cares? Do you even know where the closest Sears or Kmart store is to you? Do you know what they sell? Do you know the comparative prices? Do you know what products they carry? Do you know if they have any unique products, or value proposition? Do you know anyone who works at Sears? Or shops there? If the store nearest you closed, would you miss it amidst the Home Depot, Kohl’s or Best Buy competitors? If all Sears stores closed – every single location – would you care?
And now Illinois is considering giving this company subsidies to keep the headquarters here?
Here’s an alternative idea. Using whatever logic the state leaders can develop, using whatever dream scenario and whatever desperation economics they have in mind to save a handful of jobs, figure out what the subsidy might be. Then invest it in Groupon. Groupon is currently the most famous technology start-up in Illinois. Over the next 10 years the Groupon investment just might create a few thousand jobs, and return a nice bit of loot to the state treasury. The Sears money will be gone, and Sears is going to disappear anyway. Really, if you want to give a subsidy, if you want to “double down,” why not bet on a winner?
It really doesn’t have to be Groupon. The state residents will be much better off if the money goes into any business that is growing. Investing in the dying horse simply makes no sense. Beg Amazon, Google or Apple to open a center in Illinois – give them the building for free if you must. At least those will be jobs that won’t disappear. Or invest the money into venture funds that can invest in the next biotech or other company that might become a Groupon. Invest in senior design projects from engineering students at the University of Illinois in Chicago or Urbana/Champaign. Invest in the fillies that have a chance of winning the race!
Sentimenatality isn’t bad. We all deserve the right to “remember the good old days.” But don’t invest your retirement fund, or state tax receipts, in sentimentality. That’s how you end up like Detroit. Instead put that money into things that will grow. So you can be more like silicon valley. Invest in businesses that take advantage of market shifts, and leverage big trends to grow. Let go of sentimentality. And let go of Sears. Before it makes you bankrupt!
by Adam Hartung | Mar 2, 2011 | Books, Defend & Extend, eBooks, In the Rapids, In the Swamp, Innovation, Leadership, Lock-in
What separates business winners from the losers? A lot of pundits would say you need to be efficient, cost conscious and manage margins. Others would say you need to be really good (excellent) at something – much better than anyone else. Unfortunately, that sounds good but in our fast-paced, highly competitive world today those platitudes don’t really create winners. Success has much more to do with the ability to shift. And to create shifts.
Think about Amazon.com. This company was started as an on-line retail channel for books most stores would not stock on their shelves. But Amazon used the shift to internet acceptance as a way to grow into selling all books, and eventually came to dominate book sales. Not only have most of the small book stores disappeared, but huge chains like B. Dalton and more recently Borders, were driven to bankruptcy. Amazon then built on this shift to expand into selling lots more than books, becoming a force for selling all kinds of products. And even opening itself to become a portal for other on-line retalers by routing customers to their sites, and even taking orders for products shipped from other e-tailers.
More recently, Amazon has taken advantage of the shift to digitization by launching its Kindle e-reader. And by making thousands of books available for digital downloading. By acting upon market trends, Amazon has shifted quickly, and has caused shifts in the market where it participates. And this shifting has been worth a lot to Amazon. Over the last 5 years Amazon’s stock has risen from about $30/share to about $180/share – about a 45%/year compounded rate of return!
Chart source: Yahoo Finance
In the middle to late 1990s, as Amazon was just starting to appear on radar screens, it appeared like Sears would be the kind of company that could dominate the internet. After all Sears was huge! It was a Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) member that had ample resources to invest in the emerging growth market. Sears had a history of pioneering markets. It had once dominated retail with its catalogs, then became a powerhouse in free standing retail stores, then led the movement to shopping malls as an anchor chain, and even used its history in lending to develop what became Discover card, and had once shown its ability to be a financial services company and even an insurer! Sears had shifted with historical trends, and surely the company would see that it could bring its resources to the shifting retail landscape in order to remain dominant.
Unfortunately, Sears went a different direction, prefering to focus on defending its current business model. As the chain struggled, it was dropped from the DJIA. Eventually a financier, Edward Lampert, used his takeover of bankrupt KMart (by buying up their bonds) to take over Sears! Under his leadership Sears focused hard on being efficient, controlling costs and managing margins. Extensive financial rigor was applied to Sears to improve the profitability of every line item, dropping poor performers and closing low margin stores. While this initially excited investors, Sears was unable to compete effectively against other retailers that were lower cost, or had better merchandise or service, and the value has declined from about $190/share to $80; a loss of about 60% (at its recent worst the stock fell to almost 30 – or a decline of 84% peak to trough!)
Chart Source: Yahoo Finance
Meanwhile the world’s #1 retailer, Wal-Mart, has long excelled at being the very best at supply chain management, and low-price leadership in retailing. Wal-Mart has never varied from its original business model, and in the retail world it is undoubtedly the very best at doing what it does – buy cheap, sell cheap and run a very tight supply chain from purchase to sale. This excited some investors during the “Great Recession” as customers sought out low prices when fearing about their jobs and future.
But this strategy has not been able to produce much growth, as stores have begun saturating just about everywhere but the inner top 30 cities. And it has been completely unsuccessful outside the USA. As a result, despite its behemoth size, the value of Wal-Mart has really gone nowhere the last 5 years. While there has been price gyration (from $42 low to $62 high) for long-term investors the stock has really gone nowhere – mired mostly around $50.
Chart Source: Yahoo Finance
Investors in Amazon have clearly fared much better than Sears or Wal-Mart
Chart Source: Yahoo Finance
Too often business leaders spend too much time thinking about what they do. They think about costs, margins, the “business model” and execution. But success really has less to do with those things than understanding trends, and capitlizing on those trends by shifting. You don’t have to be the lowest cost, or most efficient or even the most passionate. What works a lot better is to go where the trends are favorable, and give customers solutions that align with the trends. And if you do this early, before anyone else, you’ll have a lot of time to figure out how to make money before competitors try to cut your margins!
Recognize that most “execution” is about preserving what happened in the past. Trying to do things better, faster and cheaper. But in a rapidly changing world, new competitors change the basis of competition. Amazon isn’t a better classical bookseller, or retailer. It’s a company that leveraged trends – market shifts – to take advantage of new technologies and new ways of people shopping. First for books and then other things. Later it built on trends toward digitization by augmenting the production of electronic publications, which is destined to change the world of book publishing altogether – and even has impact on the publishing of everything from periodicals to manuals. Amazon is now creating market shifts, which is changing the fortunes of others.
For investors, employees and suppliers you are better off to be with the company that shifts. It has the ability to grow with the trends. And the faster you get out of those companies which are stuck, locked-in to their old business model and practices in an effort to defend historical behaviors, the better off you’ll be. Despite the P/E multiples, or other claims of “value investing,” to succeed you’re a lot better off with the company that’s finding and building on trends than the ones managing costs.
by Adam Hartung | Mar 29, 2010 | Current Affairs, Leadership, Lock-in, Web/Tech
Apple now has a market cap of $210B. Microsoft has a market cap of about $260B. To traditionalists, this must seem contradictory. Apple has fought its way into new markets, and has domination in none (except maybe the narrowly defined individual music download business). Microsoft has near monopolistic market presence in personal computer operating systems and office software. According to modern business theory from business schools, and the output of books such as Business Strategy by Michael Porter, the monopolist company has entry barriers protecting its return – and thus the ability to almost print unlimited profit. Yet this has not happened.
At SeekingAlpha.com "Apple versus Microsoft: The Value Gap is Closing" the case is made that the value difference is all due to growth. Apple's business for music devices and content is growing – quickly. Its business for mobile devices and mobile device applications is also growing very fast. Those offer substantial positive cash flow today, as well as dramatic cash flow growth in the future. So much so that many analysts wonder what Apple will do with all that money. And that doesn't even count the iPad sales which have exceeded expectations – before even available to ship. And businesses are starting to build applications for the iPad, as explained in the BusinessWeek article "Businesses want Apple's iPad, too."
On the other hand, the demand for PCs is sluggish – at best. People increasingly leave their laptop at home for extended time while the use their mobile device instead. But Microsoft is stuck in a loop of upgrade development and launch. But because of the market shift, these investments are yielding less and less return. Complexity cost is going up, and profits are going down, and growth is dropping precipitously. Products in music, mobile phones and advertising have all lost significant share to Apple, Google and others as attention has remained on the "core" business. So even though current cash flow is strong, value has gone absolutely nowhere for several years, and there's precious reason to think it will go up.
When you lose growth, even if you prop up profits with draconian cost cutting and inventory sales, you lose value. Just look at Sears/KMart. Investors were really excited when Mr. Lampert used his takeover of KMart to acquire Sears. Predictions flew that he would get Sears growing again, while simultaneously monetizing the huge real estate portfolio. But as detailed in Chicago Tribune "Sears and KMart Still Standing, but Market Share Dwindles," value has declined. Mr. Lampert has proven very good at whacking cost. But when it comes to growing revenue – something that will drive ongoing growth in cash flow for a decade or more, he's shown nothing. You can't cost cut your way to long term success.
by Adam Hartung | Feb 16, 2010 | Current Affairs, Defend & Extend, In the Swamp, In the Whirlpool, Leadership
About 30 years ago Roberta Flack hit the top of the record charts (remember records anybody?) with "Killing Me Softly" – a love song. Today we have 2 examples of CEO's softly killing their shareholders, employees and investors. Definitely NOT a love song.
Sears has continued its slide, which began the day Chairman Lampert acquired the company and merged it with KMart. I blogged this was a bad idea day of announcement. Although there was much fanfare at the beginning, since day 1 Mr. Lampert has pursued an effort to Defend & Extend the outdated Sears Success Formula. And simultaneously Defend & Extend his outdated personal Success Formula based on leveraged financing and cost cutting. The result has been a dramatic reduction in Sears stores, a huge headcount reduction, lower sales per store, less merchandise available, fewer customers, empty parking lots, acres of unused real estate and horrible profits. Nothing good has happened. Nobody, not customers, suppliers or investors, have benefited from this strategy. Sears is almost irrelevant in the retail scene, a zombie most analysts are waiting to expire.
Today Crain's Chicago Business reported "Sears to Offer Diehard Power Accessories for Sale at Other Retailers." Sears results are so bad that Mr. Lampert has decided to try pushing these batteries, charges, etc. through another channel. At this late stage, all this will do is offer a few incremental initial sales – but reduce the appeal of Sears as a retailer – and eventually diminish the brand as its wide availability makes it compete head-to-head with much stronger auto battery brands like Energizer, Duralast, Optima and the heavily advertised Interstate. Sears has attempted to "milk" the Diehard brand for cash for many years, and placed in retail stores head-to-head with these other products it won't be long before Sears learns that its competitive position is weak as sales decline.
Mr. Lampert needed to "fix" Sears – not try to cut costs and drain it of cash. He needed to rebuild Sears as a viable competitor by rethinking its market position, obsessing about competitors and using Disruptions to figure out how Sears could compete with the likes of WalMart, Target, Kohl's, Home Depot, JC Penneys and other strong retailers. Now, his effort to further "milk" Diehard will quickly kill it – and make Sears an even less viable competitor.
Simultaneously, Chairperson Barnes at Sara Lee has likewise been destroying shareholder value, employee careers and supplier growth goals since taking over. During her tenure Sara Lee has sold buisinesses, cut headcount, killed almost all R&D and new product development, sold real estate and otherwise squandered away the company assets. Sara Lee is now smaller, but nobody – other than perhaps herself – has benefited from her extremely poor leadership.
As this business failure continues advancing, Crain's Chicago Business reports "Sara Lee to Spend $3B on Stock Buyback." In 2009 Sara Lee announced it was continuing the dismantling of the company by selling its body-care business to
Unilever and its air-freshener products and assets to Procter & Gamble Co. for approximately $2.2 billion. As an investor you'd like to hear all that money was being reinvested in a high growth business that would earn a significant rate of return while adding to the top line for another decade. As a supplier you'd like to hear this money would strengthen the financials, and help Sara Lee to invest in new products for growth that you could support. As an employee you'd like this money to go into new projects for revenue growth that could help your personal growth and career advancement.
But, instead, Ms. Barnes will use this money to buy company stock. This does nothing but put a short-term prop under a falling valuation. Like bamboo poles holding up a badly damaged brick wall. As investors flee, because there is no growth, low rates of return and no indication of a viable future, the money will be spent to prop up the price by buying shares from these very intelligent owner escapees. After a couple of years the money will be gone, Sara Lee will be smaller, and the shares will fall to their fair market value – no longer propped up by this corporate subsidy. The only possible winner from this will be Sara Lee executives, like Ms. Barnes, who probably have incentive compensation tied to stock price — rather than something worthwhile like organic revenue growth.
Both of these very highly paid CEOs are simply killing their business. Softly and quietly, as if they are doing something intelligent. Just because they are in powerful positions does not make them right. To the contrary, this is an abuse of their positions as they squander assets, and harm the suburban Chicago communities where they are headquartered. That their Boards of Directors are approving these decisions just goes to show how ineffective Boards are at looking out for the interests of shareholders, employees and suppliers – as they ratify the decisions of their friendly Chairperson/CEOs who put them in their Board positions. The Boards of Sears and Sara Lee are demonstrating all the governance skill of the Boards at Circuit City and GM.
It's too bad. Both companies could be viable competitors. But not as long as the leadership tries to Defend & Extend outdated Success Formulas unable to produce satisfactory rates of return. Lacking serious Disruption and White Space, these two publicly traded companies remain on the road to failure.
by Adam Hartung | Mar 5, 2009 | Investing, Trends, Uncategorized
I've never met anyone who says they speculate in the stock market. My colleagues always say they are investors; people who know what they were doing and savvy about the market. But, reality is that most people speculate. Because they don't invest on underlying business value. Instead, they rely on words from "gurus" and follow trends. That, unfortunately, is speculating.
Back on 12/21/08 (just a couple of months ago) the DJIA was at 8960, the S&P 918. Looking at The Chicago Tribune for that day, the primary recommendation by analysts for 2009 was "Keep an eye on long-term horizons" and "weather out the storm". The markets were down, but don't panic. Famed investment maven Elaine Garzarelli recommended if you had $10k in cash to invest $2k in tech stocks, $2k in Citigroup Preferred, $2k in GE and $2k in an income-oriented fund. Then put $2k into a short fund to hedge your risks! She couldn't have been more dead wrong on the only two named companies – GE and C. Both are at modern, or all time, lows. Don Phillip, managing director at Morningstar, recommended investing all $10K in equities because "they've taken an unprecedented hit and are very cheap."
When you hear investment gurus, on TV or elsewhere, tell you to "stay the course, the market always recovers" they are basing their opinions on history – not the future. This isn't last year, or the last recession, or the last economy. Will all economies eventually recover? Maybe not. Will the U.S. economy recover in your lifetime? Not assured – Japan has been in a recession for over a decade! Does that mean American companies will be the ones to lead the world in the next upmarket? Not assured. These "gurus" have been dead wrong for almost a year – and at the most important time in your investment history. If they were so wrong for the last year, why are they still on TV? Why are you listening?
In the short term, stock markets are driven by momentum. When most people are buying, the markets keep going up. Even for individual stocks. Sears had no reason to go up in value after being acquired by Ed Lampert's KMart corporation. Sears and Kmart were overleveraged, earning below-market rates of return, and with assets that had long lost their luster. But because Jim Cramer of CNBC Mad Money fame knew and liked Mr. Lampert he kept talking up the stock. Other hedge fund operators thought Mr. Lampert had been clever in the past, so they guessed he knew something they didn't and they speculated in his investment. The value went up 10x – and then came down 90%. Wild ride – but in the history of markets unless you are a speculator, you should never have invested in Sears. When you hear "don't be a market timer" remember that the only way to make money in Sears was to be a market timer – you had to buy and sell at the right time because the company wasn't able to increase its value. Sears' Success Formula was out of date, and there was no sign of a plan for the future, nor obsession about market changes and competitors, nor willingness to Disrupt old behaviors nor White Space. From the beginning this was a bad investment, and it has remained that way.
Today the market remains driven by momentum. Who wants to say they are buying stocks when the major averages keep falling? What CEO wants to say he's optimistic when it's popular to present "caution"? Who wants to discuss opportunities for markets in 2015 being 3x bigger when right now demand for industrial products like cars is down 20-40%? When momentum is up, you can't find a pessimistic CEO. Nor a pessimistic investor. So the likewise is equally true.
Reality is that there are good investments today, and bad. If a business is firmly locked into the industrial economy, such as GM and Ford, making the same products in much the same way to sell to pretty much the same customers, but with new competitors entering from all around - those companies are not good investments. Regardless of the rate of economic growth or debt availability. Their Lock-in to outdated Success Formulas means that their rates of return will not improve, even if overall economic growth does. Markets have shifted, and keep shifting. Businesses that were not profitable in the old market aren't going to suddenly be better competitors in a future market. Just the opposite is more likely. Even if they survive in a foxhole for a year or two, when they come out the market will be filled with new competitors just as vicious as the old ones.
But there are businesses positioning themselves for the markets of tomorrow. Apple with its iPod, iTunes, iPhone is an example. Google with its near monopoly on internet ad placement and management as well as search. And companies that are moving toward new markets rather than remaining frozen in the old model and exacerbating weaknesses with cost cutting. Like Domino's pizza.
GM will never again be a great car company. So what's new? That was clear in 1980 when Chairman Roger Smith said the company had a limited future in autos operating as it always had. That doesn't mean GM couldn't again be a growing, healthy company if new management sent the company in search of new markets with growth opportunities. Like Singer getting out of sewing machines to be a defense contractor in the 1980s. By purchasing an old-fashioned mortgage bank, and an old fashioned investment bank/retail brokerage, Bank of America is not strengthening its position for future markets. Instead, it is fighting the last war. But any company can change its competitive position if it chooses to focus on, and invest in, new markets. And those who do it NOW will be first into the new markets and able to change competitive position. When markets shift, those who move to the new competitiveness first gain the advantage. And their position is reinforced by competitors who dive for cover through cost cuts not tied to business repositioning.
Why is GM still on the DJIA? They should have been removed years ago. That's how the Dow intelligentsia keeps the average always going up – by taking off companies like Sears and replacing them with companies that are more closely linked to where markets are going (at the time, Home Depot). If we swapped out GM for Google, and Kraft for Apple, the numbers on the DJIA would be considerably better than we see today. And if you want to make money as an investor, you have to do the same thing. You have to dump companies that are unwilling to break out of Lock-in to outdated business models and invest in companies who are heading full force into future markets. In all markets there are good investments. But you have to find the companies that plan for the future, not the past – obsess about competitors – are not afraid to Disrupt themselves and markets – and utilize White Space to test new products and services that can create growth no matter what the economy.
