We
last wrote about the struggles of Sears Holdings Corp. in late January, when chairman Eddie Lampert announced a major reorg of the company into five business units, plus the departure of one CEO and a search for a new one. Amid speculation about possible asset sales, we zeroed in on the retailer's famous hard-goods brands -- notably Kenmore and Craftsman -- which some see as more valuable than the Sears name itself. Now that brands are a business unit in their own right, we wondered, would Lampert further explore the path of selling them through other retail channels? Will the brands themselves be sold?
Friday
comes news (first reported in The Wall Street Journal) that both of those brands are getting new managers. The longtime Sears executives who had been in charge of them (Tina Settecase at Kenmore and Greg Inwood at Craftsman) are both retiring, to be replaced by Steven Light, a former vp of inventory management, and Dave Figler, a former Staples Inc. exec, respectively. No hint on what (if anything) the moves might mean for brand strategy, but the moves themselves are worth noting.
So is the other personnel news out of Sears this week. On Wednesday the company
announced that it is adding an eighth member to its board: Kevin Rollins, former CEO of Dell Inc. Rollins,
you may recall, left Dell early last year as founder Michael Dell took the reins again to right the company, which has suffered from complaints about customer service and loss of market share. These days Rollins, a one-time Bain Capital LLC consultant, is also a senior adviser to private equity giant TPG.
Hedge funder Lampert touted Rollins' operational experience, which is something the board, heavily weighted with financial types, no doubt needs. What he doesn't bring is retail knowledge, at least not the in-store kind. That is also in short supply on the Sears board (though one member, Emily Scott, did run J. Crew Group Inc. for many years). The 15-member
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. board, by comparison, includes former execs from companies such as J.C. Penney Co., Coca-Cola Co. and Wal-Mart itself.
Meanwhile, the search for a permanent CEO apparently continues.
- Kenneth Klee
Join Corporate Dealmaker's LinkedIn forum
Juergen Lasowski
And the winners are...
