Sears brooms CEO, Lampert washes hands

Posted Jan 28th 2008 6:17AM by Douglas McIntyre
Filed under: Management, Wal-Mart (WMT), Sears Holdings (SHLD)

Aylwin B. Lewis will step down as CEO of Sears Holdings (NASDAQ: SHLD), paying for the sins of his boss, hedge-fund billionaire Eddie Lampert. Lampert put together the Sears chain with K-Mart and found that one plus one equals zero when the brands are so poor that people would rather shop at Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT).

Shares in Sears are down from a 52-week high of $195 to under $100. They will probably fall much further. Lampert has said he will make operating units more free to handle decisions at the brand level. He brought in new management to run the company's e-commerce unit.

In a statement quoted at MarketWatch, Lampert said ,"We are entering a new phase in Sears' evolution as a multi-channel retailer, as reflected by the new operational structure we recently announced, and the board has determined that now is the right time to put in place new leadership to take the company forward."

In other words, "we have no idea what we are doing, so we will try a new horse."

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Tags: Aylwin B. Lewis, AylwinB.Lewis, Eddie Lampert, EddieLampert, inthenews, K-Mart, shld, wmt

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

1-28-2008 @ 7:53AM

Rob said...

check out my commentary about the retailers
http://wallastoninvestments.com/what-stocks-will-make-you-rich-week-of-jan-20-26

1-28-2008 @ 3:22PM

Gene said...

Sears management let technology take over customer service. Splitting won't help anything until they learn that the customer is, indeed, King.

1-29-2008 @ 2:22PM

SYD S said...

when kmart bought out sears customer satisfaction and help went down the drain and the customer was not king anymore.

1-29-2008 @ 2:23PM

SYD S said...

getting rid of mr lewis should be just the beginning. the next one that either step down or find people that are competant enough to run a company like sears seperatly from k mart. sears was once a great company and it is about time people at the top opened there eyes and put sears back on the map.

2-28-2008 @ 8:56AM

Ted said...

Thats right Eddie, Can the guy who was trying the hardest to improve the company. Get off your can in Conn. and start firing the useless managers you have from the lowest levels first, like your auto centers and FLS .