As Sears fights for its life, creditors say maybe it should die

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Chairman Eddie Lampert wants to keep Sears Holdings Corp. alive, but a group of the company’s creditors say they’d be better off if Sears were dead.

The plan envisioned by Lampert amounts to “an unjustified and foolhardy gamble with other people’s money,” the unsecured creditors committee said in court papers on Friday. Staying in operation long enough to allow a sale would burn through as much as half a billion dollars, which should instead go to creditors, the group said.

Sears filed for bankruptcy protection Oct. 15 after years of decline, and on Nov. 2 proposed to auction off its highest-performing stores. That could open the way for Lampert, Sears’s largest shareholder and creditor, to hold on to the best parts of the retail empire without spending a dime by making a so-called credit bid -- trading the debt he holds for ownership.

But Sears can’t be saved, the unsecured creditors group said. The company’s plan “appears to be nothing more than wishful thinking,” it said, leaving the group “no choice” but to request the bankruptcy court deny the request to pursue the store sale.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/as-sears-fights-for-its-life-creditors-say-maybe-it-should-die/ar-BBPD2fX?li=BBnbfcN

[TlalocW]

1. I have a fond memory of Sears

In its better days in the late 90s. Companies would essentially rent them out for Christmas parties after normal closing hours, and my company did. We got some coupons and a gift bag, and Sears to ourselves, which was all done up for Christmas. They had roaming carolers, string quartets, waiters with hors-d'oeuvres, pictures with Santa, etc. I know it sounds cheesy, but it was close to being in a movie Christmas party as a simple midwesterner like me will get. And I realize, money, money, money, but it was just Christmasy. I've only had one other experience like it - when I entertained at a bank's Christmas party, which was in a small town, and the bank was in an old-fashioned building, and they kept a lot of the trappings of an old 1930s bank, and they just decorated the shit out of it. Anyway. I lived close to that Sears at the time, and I visited it not long before I moved, and it was a shell of its former self. It was open, but only the parts by the entry way so they didn't have to turn on all its lights. No pattern to the racks. A lot of stuff still in boxes, and the employees didn't care - why should they? Store wasn't going to last long.

Lampert is a damn Ayn Rand idiot. He had divisions at the corporate level competing for money and resources by any means necessary in accordance with objectivism. I'm surprised Sears lasted this long, and I'm sure if/when it goes under, he'll have a nice golden parachute.

TlalocW