Filed under: Products and services, Management, Competitive strategy, Employees, Sears Holdings (SHLD)

I like Eddie Lampert and I like those Sears stores. I like Craftsman tools and I (sort of) also like the Kmart part of Sears Holdings (NYSE: SHLD).

For those who might be confused as to what Eddie is doing with his potential company “break up,” he’s taking a distressed operation and laying it directly at the feet of the rubes who have screwed it up. It’s a tactic that I myself would employ. Eddie Lampert is the somewhat silent watchful type, observant to a fault. He’s a “big picture” thinker in the classic style. He plans and plots and weighs. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

You see, Eddie “Golden Boy” Lampert isn’t the kind of fellow who’ll just blindly clear the decks of seasoned personnel in an effort to generate profit. If such were the case, we’d have seen way more of those pink slips flying long before now. I believe that by fracturing the company structure and by giving more divisional independence, he is now setting the stage for some timely and precise head-chopping down the road.

Eddie Lampert, worst CEO of 2007? Not in my book, not by a long shot. Yes, perhaps if you measure things strictly in growth dollars, Sears Holdings looks pretty ugly right now, but there’s far more to the retail game than just rapid growth. Give the man some time to reveal his hand, one carefully picked card at a time. Besides, Eddie Lampert doesn’t hold much regard for judgment by share price alone, and frankly my friends, neither do I.

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Filed under: Analyst reports, Industry, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO)

Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) piece of the U.S. search market fell a bit in December. The benefit seemed to go to Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) according to Nielsen data. Google’s market share dropped from 57.7% in November to 56.3% last month. Microsoft moved from 12% to 13.3% over the same period.

Microsoft has been offering video games and other merchandise to get consumers to use its online products, so there is a good chance the the shift is temporary. It is a bit like getting a new toaster to open a new bank account. Consumers keep their big account with their current financial institution and move $50 to get that toaster.

The loser in all of this movement was Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO). Its share continues to drop, and fell from 17.9% to 17.7%. Unlike Microsoft, Yahoo! does not have other businesses to fall back on.

Yahoo!’s problems are showing. It stock fell to $20.07 yesterday, a 52-week low. Its shares have not been below $20 since late 2003. That may be about to change.

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

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Filed under: Earnings reports, Forecasts, General Electric (GE), Schlumberger Limited (SLB), Citigroup Inc. (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Charles Schwab Corp (SCHW), Merrill Lynch (MER), Sears Holdings (SHLD), TD AmeriTrade Holding (AMTD), Washington Mutual (WM), Wells Fargo (WFC)

Here are a few more highlights of this past week’s earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Charles Schwab Corp. (NASDAQ: SCHW) missed earnings estimates but beat revenue expectations.
• Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) posted a bigger than expected loss, due to subprime-related write-downs.
• General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) reported a solid fourth quarter, bringing a hint of optimism to Wall Street.
• JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) missed estimates due to consumer lending issues.
• Merrill Lynch & Co. (NYSE: MER) posted a bigger than expected loss due to large write-downs.
• Schlumberger Ltd. (NYSE: SLB) missed expectations due to market conditions and weather factors.
• Sears Holding (NASDAQ: SHLD) lowered its fourth quarter outlook on weak holiday sales.
• State Street Corp. (NYSE: STT) beat expectations, after a subprime-related charge is excluded.
• TD Ameritrade Corp. (NASDAQ: AMTD) net income rose sharply on increased trading activity.
• US Bancorp (NYSE: USB) missed earnings estimates, but is “well capitalized” according to the CEO.
• Washington Mutual Inc. (NYSE: WM) swung to a loss due to the credit crunch, as it had warned.
• Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) reported its lowest quarterly profit in years, as analysts had expected.

See additional earnings highlights. Also, Jim Cramer ponders the ennui of the new earnings season. Peter Cohan mulls whether this will be the worst earnings period for the lending industry since the Great Depression.

Upcoming results to watch for include Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE), Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F), Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV), AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT), and Harley-Davidson Inc. (NYSE: HOG).

Visit AOL Money & Finance for more earnings coverage.

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Filed under: Management, Scandals

When Overstock.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: OSTK) COO Jason Lindsey resigned, questions immediately emerged, given the state of upheaval that the company is in.

Well, compelling evidence has now emerged suggesting that Mr. Lindsey was not honest about the time of his resignation. In an 8-K filed with the SEC on January 2, Overstock reported that, “On December 31, 2007, Mr. Jason C. Lindsey resigned, effective immediately from his positions as President, Chief Operating Officer (principal operating officer) and a member of the Board of Directors of Overstock.com, Inc.”

But in a declaration dated January 12, part of Overstock’s lawsuit against Gradient Analytics and Rocker Partners, Lindsey swore under penalty of perjury that he “served as Overstock’s President from April 2006 until January 2nd, 2008.”

Continue reading When did Overstock.com’s COO really resign?

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Filed under: Google (GOOG), Yahoo! (YHOO), Citigroup Inc. (C), Merrill Lynch (MER), Small business

Lately, the headlines have been scary. Unemployment is increasing. There are concerns from the presidential candidates. Real estate values are sagging and foreclosures are skyrocketing. And, premier companies - like Citigroup (NYSE: C) and Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) - have raised billions of dollars to deal with heavy losses.

So, if the economy is slowing down, how can your business deal with things?

Let’s take a look:

Deal with hidden costs: When looking at expense items, some might seem small. But it’s often the case that these items - in aggregate - can turn into a big deal.

According to Tom Sharples, president of Qorvus Systems: “Typical small- or medium-sized businesses that have been around for a few years can find duplicative costs: unused cell-phone contracts that continue to rack up charges, subscriptions to services associated with long-departed employees and often all sorts of legacy junk that no one even remembers ordering, but that you’re still paying for every month.”

Continue reading Entrepreneur’s Journal: Fortify your business from the recession

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Filed under: Alcoa Inc (AA)

Former Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) CEO Stan O’Neal has found his way on to the board of directors at Alcoa Inc. (NYSE: AA). In the press release announcing the move, Alcoa chairman and CEO Alain Belda described O’Neal as a “straightforward leader who focused on improving the operations of the business during his tenure at Merrill as part of his broader strategic vision for the firm.”

But Merrill Lynch shareholders will of course remember O’Neal as the man who presided over Merrill Lynch’s ill-advised investments into subprime debt that have led to billions in write-downs.

As a director, O’Neal will be responsible for protecting the interests of the company’s shareholders and, on that front, his qualifications are debatable. He was roundly criticized for departing Merrill with a $161.5 million severance package following a large decline in the company’s share price.

At least Mr. O’Neal won’t be serving on the compensation committee.

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Filed under: Deals, Industry, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Cisco Systems (CSCO), Dell (DELL)

Most investors do not think of tech companies as being debt-laden. Many became pubic by raising cash in IPOs over the last decade. Any debt they had was paid off with capital raised. The rest stayed on the balance sheet.

A study by Paul Kedrosky written up in Barron’s paints a very different picture for some companies. Several large corporations, including Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL), Take-Two Interactive (NASDAQ: TTWO), and Wipro Ltd. (NYSE: WIT), have long-term debt to equity ratios of over 2x. For some big tech names the figure is over 6x.

Under normal circumstances, this kind of data would be benign. But with the credit markets in crisis, refinancing debt on terms more favorable than firms have currently may be very difficult. Or, if the bond market gets very right, a company like Ingram Micro (NYSE: IM) could get in a real pinch.

There is another side to this. Cash-rich companies like Microsoft Corp. (NYSE: MSFT), Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), and Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) may be able to shop for bargains. For them to pick up a company and pay its debt down may not be a significant problem.

More tech M&A this year? Almost certainly.

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

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Filed under: Management, Sears Holdings (SHLD)

As my colleague Douglas McIntyre pointed out this morning as well, Sears Holdings (NYSE: SHLD) chairman Ed Lampert wants to shake things up at the struggling retailer.

According (subscription required) to the Wall Street Journal, Lampert “plans to reorganize the 121-year-old retailer into several businesses with broad authority to shape their own future.”

Lampert will essentially adopt a holding company structure for the company: real estate, brands, operating businesses, online, support, and other.

When naming Lampert the worst CEO of 2007 (although, as Greenberg notes, the sorry distinction of being Sears’ official CEO goes to Aylwin Lewis), Herb Greenberg blamed a big part of Sears’ problems on capital allocation: “Lampert’s mantra has been profits over sales, which makes sense if it works … So far, for all of Sears, including Kmart, the strategy has failed miserably.”

Shifting the corporate structure is probably just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic — the real problem for Sears as a retailer is its failure to invest and keep up with faster moving competition.

See also Gary Sattler’s Get off Eddie Lampert’s back already, will ya?

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Filed under: Industry, Competitive strategy, Wal-Mart (WMT), Sears Holdings (SHLD), Procter and Gamble (PG)

Eddie Lampert is desperate. His Sears Holdings (NASDAQ: SHLD) will divide itself into several units to try to stop its hemorrhaging of customers. According to (subscription required) The Wall Street Journal, “the contemplated restructuring would create separate units to manage Sears’s real-estate holdings and run brands such as Kenmore, Diehard, and Craftsman.” How the stores-owned under brands like Kmart and Sears will be divided has not been disclosed.

Shares in Sears now trade at just above $89, down from a 52-week high of $195.18. The stock is down about 50% in the last year, while shares in rival Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT) are flat.

Why Lampert believes that moving his chess pieces around the table will work is anyone’s guess. Pushing decisions about merchandise and brand marketing to divisions is no different than having “brand managers” under the current structure. Many successful companies, such as Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG), are already run this way.

People don’t want to shop at Sears and Kmart. The brands are dying.

Lampert is just grasping at straws.

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

See also:
Zac Bissonnette’s Lampert looks to shake things up at struggling Sears
Gary Sattler’s Get off Eddie Lampert’s back already, will ya?

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Filed under: Earnings reports, Forecasts, Apple Inc (AAPL), Intel (INTC), General Motors (GM), International Business Machines (IBM), Advanced Micro Dev (AMD), Novartis AG ADS (NVS), AMR Corp (AMR), Johnson Controls (JCI)

Here are a few highlights of this past week’s earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) had a lackluster quarter due in part to the acquistion of ATI.
• AMR Corp. (NYSE: AMR) posted a larger than expected loss due to rising fuel costs.
• Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) shares are hunkered down post-MacWorld but ahead of the Q1 report.
• Genentech Inc. (NYSE: DNA) beat earnings estimates, though its growth is slowing.
• General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) forecasts earnings growth on cost-cutting and overseas sales.
• IBM (NYSE: IBM) had an impressive fourth quarter and expects a good 2008 (see transcript).
• Intel Corp.’s (NASDAQ: INTC) solid results failed to impress investors (see transcript).
• Johnson Controls Inc. (NYSE: JCI) posted a solid first quarter, with growth in all divisions.
• New Oriental Educational & Technology Group Inc. (NYSE: EDU) posted disappointing results.
• Novartis AG (NYSE: NVS) profits fell on restructuring costs and increased competition for generics.
• Sony Ericsson beat estimates and is gaining market share in the global cell phone market.
• TJX Companies Inc. (NYSE: TJX) revised its fourth quarter outlook after strong December sales.
• Vignette Corp. (NASDAQ: VIGN) raised its fourth quarter revenue guidance, which buoyed shares.
• Williams-Sonoma Inc. (NYSE: WSM) lowered its guidance on weak holiday sales.

See additional earnings highlights. Also, Jim Cramer ponders the ennui of the new earnings season. Georges Yared is bullish on tech stocks, and big tech executives are bullish as well. Jonathan Berr looks ahead to upcoming big tech reports.

Other upcoming results to watch for include Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN), eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY), Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT), Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM), Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK), AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), E*Trade Corp. (NASDAQ: ETFN), and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT).

Visit AOL Money & Finance for more earnings coverage.

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