Jesus, what did Sears Holdings (SHLD) Eddie Lampert do to CNBC’s Erin Burnett? Did they date when she worked at Goldman Sachs (GS) or did he rebuff her advances? Perhaps she is miffed that she did not get an interview she wanted?
She has been joyously drubbing this quarters performance all day today on CNBC. She does is with this sick little smile on her face too. Odd…
Now, I am not saying this was a good quarter, it sucked. But, Burnett has taking it a bit farther. She spent this morning comparing his Citigroup (C) purchases to that of Saudi Prince Alwaleed’s. Now, it is one thing to compare two investors purchase price but is it really legitimate or the slightest bit honest to compare purchases of a company made 17 years apart? Am I the only one who finds that embarrassingly transparent?
Then she jumps into the “how much time does Lampert have left” doomsday scenario. Okay,,,,,, let’s just forget the 20 year and 28% annual return Lampert has produced for investors. That track record alone places him in a handful of investors. I mean, I am sure anyone who has made a fortune with Lampert is jumping ship now because of a bad year. Let’s also forget the 5 year lockup people give him when they fork over their $10 million minimum to invest with him. Let’s also ignore the fact that folks who have $10 million to give someone for 5 years to invest, did not get that type of money by pissing their pants at every bump in the road.
Sears. Burnett clearly has no grasp of the situation. It is a retail turnaround story. Those take years. Sears is not losing money and still is producing billions for Lampert to repurchase shares. Has Burnett seen the stock price and performance of other comparable retailers like JC Penny (JCP) down 48% from its high and Macy’s (M) down 30% from its high? Apparently not. Check out the one year chart of all three here. Look similar?
What Burnett casually glosses over is that when Lampert took control of both Sears and Kmart, they were careening toward extinction (Kmart actually was bankrupt). Now they produce about $1 billion in cash and every quarter that goes buy, Lampert increases our ownership percentage.
Awful job Eddie…. (please detect the sarcasm)
Erin, get over it “he just not that into you”
9 replies on “Did Lampert Dump Burnett?”
there is two scenario here:
1. Eddie does not care about SHLD price and performance because he is buying his stock back at cheap prices increasing his ESL ownership with no extra investment
2. he is a great investor but lousy retail manager
I am not really sure which one to go with but the business looks cheap on one thing only its real estate holdings, other than that I do not think it has any real competitive advantage.
And btw lay off Erin 🙂
Todd — love your blog.
I am definitely holding SHLD long-term, but I am considering “doubling-down” tomorrow morning and then selling my original shares (which have a cost basis of around $135) for a tax loss on Dec. 31. Alternatively, I may just do nothing. What would you do?
i think if you do it you have to do so buy 12/1 in order to get around the “wash rule”…
consult an accountant. you have to buy first then sell i believe and then not buy more for the rest of the year to be ok with the IRS.
if you are at a loss, no reason not to do it if the loss is large enough. remember, it is not a 100% offset to income, it is an off set to capital gains….
check closely first
2 questions. Who is Erin Burnett and why should I care?
At times like these I like to curl up with one of my favorite reading selections:
“What’s Wrong, Warren?”, Barron’s Magazine.
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB945992010127068546.html
If the SHLD buy was a painfully obvious pick to the rest of the world, there would not be such a potential upside.
As far as Erin goes.. I believe Obi-Wan says it best: “The force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded”.
Yeah, Erin had a bone to pick. Who knows why? Maybe Cramer cut her off at the knees 30 points higher. That jackass has beclowned himself in SHLD. KMRT had emerged from bankruptcy, and was trading quite nicely when he loaded up. With the balance sheet washed the assets were a pure play, and Eddie nailed it. As a retail play SHLD has been in “now what?” mode to long to hold. If folks are still leaving dough with John Henry they are never leaving this boy.
Ryan,
she is the female talking head on CNBC..
Any video links to E.B.’s commentary?
I will look around