A cash-flow problem at Sears (SHLD)?

Posted Feb 8th 2008 9:20AM by Douglas McIntyre
Filed under: Earnings Reports, Deals, Bad News, Management, Sears Holdings (SHLD)

Eddie Lambert may have to loan Sears Holdings (NYSE: SHLD) some money. Cash at the company be getting very tight. According to the Wall Street Journal, "some analysts wonder whether falling sales, slimmer profit margins and other woes are causing cash flows to decline to a level that could hinder a turnaround."

The last cash balance that Sears announced was lower than most analysts expected. If the company needs to spend money to improve its stores or increase inventory in products it thinks will sell well, it could draw down the cash level even further.

For Lampert, the bad news keeps getting worse. Sears stock has staged a mini-rally over the last two weeks, moving from below $85 to $103. News about cash problems could push the shares back down.

Lampert made the classic error of thinking that with Sears and K-Mart 1+1=3. In reality, he took two weak companies and saved some money in a merger. The problem was that the companies got even weaker.

Who says that hedge fund managers don't make good corporate chiefs?

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

Tags: Eddie Lampert, EddieLampert, inthenews, k-mart, sears, sears holdings, SearsHoldings, shld

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

2-09-2008 @ 2:04PM

Samuel L. Caston said...

cnbc and jim cramer are proping up retail.

On Thursday, from morning til night, they repeatedly reminded us to love retail.(40 times???)

Don't be sold a bill of goods because Tiffany and JCP happeded to do well.

Better to dump that Sears stock with the rest of the "GAR-BASH".

2-09-2008 @ 4:28PM

Smart Guy said...

Another .com Groupie thinks he knows the stock market *sigh* i wish we could get some real investors to comment on blogs these days instead of mid 20 somthings bored in there basement posting comments (:

2-09-2008 @ 8:58PM

old dog said...

Sears has been here a long time, up & down, but never own & out. Any company with a fairly broad market, a century of survival, inclding through the Great Depression and many wars, cannot be written off easily. I'll hang on to the bit of SHLD that I have, & perhaps buy a bit more while price is right. I'll trust History before those who can't face a wait.