Sears Holdings Corp (NASDAQ:SHLD)

Should have bought at $95.

Edward S. Lampert has been described as a genius and his abilities have been called into question of late. He remains the capable Chairman of the board of Directors and will once again return to the top of his game.

Sears, the oldest company that I know of, and they have brought back Kmart, what is the best of both worlds.

Sears sucks.. Who shops at Sears except maybe for hardware. If we're going into a recession, I don't see them doing well.

Take a ride by wal=mart or target look in the parking lot see how many spots are available. the big k has pleanty of good parking !

SHLD has a significant amount of restructuring to accomplish. SHLD’s total organization behavior from within will need to be decentralized. I do not see SHLD coming out of the gutter any time soon with other giants such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy picking up momentum. If anything stockholders may just be lucky enough to breakeven. SHLD’s consumer market is dwindling and consumer loyalty has fallen off to all time lows. Until some major benchmarks are met, I would stay clear from this stock.

Lampert.

Bruce Berkowitz of the Fairholme fund, one of the prominent value investors, replied the following in a recent interview when asked: "Do you think Chairman Edward Lampert can turn things around?":

"I think that he's going to do it. And it's very reminiscent of what happened with Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway in the early days. If you play back the tape, Warren Buffett bought into Berkshire Hathaway, a textile mill, and he took many years to try and turn it around. He had deep respect for the employees; he really gave it his best shot. And then when he realized it wouldn't work, he then started to redeploy the assets and the free cash that was coming out of this industry that was destined to die. And that's how Berkshire Hathaway started.

"Sears is the same situation. Sears has a great real-estate portfolio, and people are behaving as if it can only be used as retail space. And they have brands; some of them are quite good. The company has over $50 billion of revenue and is making money, and people are acting as if it's a company that's bleeding to death. People aren't looking at it in the right way. They are measuring it based as a retailer, and they are measuring it based on short-term net income profitability. But there are many more dimensions to Sears. Real estate can have a higher and best use. Today's anchor to a mall can be tomorrow's multipurpose, multiuse building where you can have office buildings, retail, and residential spaces.

"Of course, the best thing that could happen would be that he turns around Sears and Kmart and it's a grand-slam home run. The worst thing that happens is he gives it his best shot and starts to find higher and better uses for all of the assets, from land to trademarks to online. If you can see three or four different ways where you can make an awful lot of money with a guy who has a record of making an awful lot of money, it's not such a bad thing."

Read the rest of the interview here:

http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/economy/2008/02/29/a-portfolio-warren-buffett-would-love.html

Sears has the benefits of Eddie Lampert as asset allocator and valuable real estate. The company is still generating significant cash flow and has brands and assets that can still be used to generate value. I'm projecting 12% returns on equity and 12% growth over the long term, although the short term operational environment will probably still be quite rough.

Eddie Lampert uses a value based philosophy. His hedge funds required a 5 year commitment because it often takes a few years for the investments to reach their value.

I also like that he is trying to make the retail part work. Too many people felt he was going to use the cash and real estate to make SHLD a hedge fund. As a value investor though he needs a steady income of cash so that he does not have to sell his holdings to purchase new opportunities. Sears does not have to beat Target and Wal-Mart, They just have to regularly create positive cash flow.

I think he will get there. If not it is pretty near it bottom at this point

Good Price for Value

The stock has been trounced. Eddie Lampert has skills and just as all great money managers have their ups and downs, this is his down and the future is bright.

overvalued

I don't mean to be a sheep, but if Eddie, Bill Miller, and Pabrai like it, that's good enough for me. I'd like to know Pabrai's position size, since he advocates using a conservative version of they Kelly formula (when to bet large).

Job cuts don't create good feelings in the immediate future.

This is going to rebound over time; see the unchanging position of T2 Analysts, who think the intrinsic value is as high as $250 and have bought at positions as low as $85 and as high as $130 over the past couple years. Retail is tough right now but if you're willing to ride the bumps and bruises there is money to be made off Sears.

Until and before the economic stimulous package is finalized and retailers start realizing returns, this will have a nice downtrend. With consumer credit exposure, there will be ongoing weakening as well.

Rock Solid Brand. National Chain with presence in nearly every mall in America. Will definitely turn around once the economy starts to pick up again - then it could double off of current prices.

I believe that it is the leader of a corporation that determines the success of a company. This may seem obvious, but I wholeheartedly believe that any company can be taken up, or down, by its leader.

That said, Eddie Lampert should not be underestimated. He is the type of person that thrives on being underestimated.

Eddie is a winner. He is crafty - and he will not lose. He won't die either. Doesn't it say something when you hear that he was kidnapped by a group of people (not just one person) and was able to talk his way out. He won't let this thing fail.

As you go through life, you come to realize that some people will always win; they are the "winners" in life. These are the people that you want to be sure to join.

I'm just glad that Eddie is letting all of us on his team. He could have raised another fund (in addition to ESL; his hedge fund) to take Sears private. Then we would have all been out of luck. At least now we have a chance to join his team and invest in SHLD.