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For a generation of young shoppers, Sears is the store they want to visit the most at the mall they rarely visit.
But for much of its 132-year history, the company was at the forefront of the US retail business. His early innovations in mail order and distribution have made him the golden age of the Amazon.
Later, its extensive network of physical stores enabled the company to position itself in select stores across the country. For years, it was the largest retailer in the United States, operating from the tallest building in the world. At various times she sold products such as fishing tackle, gravestones, barber chairs, wigs and even a "Stradivarius model". violin"For $ 6.10.
Over the past decade, however, little of this splendor was evident. The company has lost money for years, its workforce has been reduced by hundreds of thousands of employees and has several thousand fewer stores than in 2008. Even the iconic Sears Chicago's tower – which it no longer owns – has been renamed after an insurance company.
Sears has defied forecasts of bankruptcy for years. Recently, she avoided this fate by purging her classic classic brands and selling her real estate. But early Monday morning, facing a Debt payment of $ 134 million, the company filed a bankruptcy protection application.
Here are some key moments in the history of Sears.
1886
An empire built on a few watches
Richard Sears, station agent, created the R.W. Sears Watch Company in Minneapolis after buying a lot of watches from a local jeweler and selling them to other agents. The following year, he transferred the company to Chicago and hired Alvah C. Roebuck, a watchmaker, through a small ad.
1896
The "wish book" goes rural
The company, renamed Sears, Roebuck and Company, has benefited from a US postal service program called Rural Free Delivery, which extends mail routes to rural areas. At that time, society catalog spread over more than 500 pages (some editions of the so-called book of wishes would grow to more than 1,000 pages).
1906
A list of shares of Goldman Sachs
Sears went public with preferred shares selling for $ 97.50 each – over $ 2,500 now. Goldman Sachs succeeded l & # 39; offering. That year, Sears also opened a mail-order distribution center in Chicago's West Side. With three million square feet of living space, it was one of the largest buildings of its kind in the world. In 1908, the company started to market home kits by mail order. By 1940, he had sold more than 70,000 homes in 447 styles.
1925
A brick and mortar boom
Nearly 40 years after its creation, the company opened its first retail store in Chicago. In five years, it had more than 300 points of sale and sold private labels such as Kenmore and Craftsman.
The expansion was coordinated by Robert E. Wood, General during the First World War. While looking at the census data, he found that more and more mobile Americans were moving around and around cities and wanted to browse the products in person.
The company then created Allstate Insurance, in reference to the growing number of customers owning cars. In 1931, retail sales exceeded mail order sales.
1957
An index debut
The Standard & Poor's 500-Stock Index made its debut with Sears among the first members (a position it left in 2012). The company was part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average from 1924 to 1999.
1973
At the head of the competition
The company, which was then the country's largest retailer for years, moved its headquarters to the Sears Tower. The Chicago Monument was the tallest building in the world for 25 years. In 1988, Sears attempted to solve some of its financial difficulties by selling the structure, but failed to find a buyer. In the midst of the collapse of local real estate values in 1994, Sears transferred the property to two lenders. The building was renamed Willis Tower in 2009.
nineteen eighty one
"Socks and stocks"
Sears pursued a strategy known as "socks and stocks", trying to integrate financial services into its retail strategy by buying Dean Witter Reynolds, Securities Dealer, and Coldwell, Banker & Company, Real Estate Broker. His Discover card, created by Dean Witter in 1985, was popular.
1989
Cut deeply
Under the pressure of competitors like Walmart, who later Having overtaken Sears as the largest retailer in the United States, the company has begun a campaign of discounts. It reduced prices on most of its inventory and, over time, shut down its stores, closed hundreds of stores and laid off tens of thousands of employees. Stores have started to offer more outdoor brands and accept non-store credit cards to attract customers.
1992
Fraud accusations
The California Department of Consumer Affairs has accused Sears auto repair shops of committing systematic fraud, accusations that quickly echoed in other states. The agency said that in nearly 90% of the undercover investigators' visits, employees suggested unnecessary repairs. Sears denied the charges but soon had other concerns to settle.
Over the next few years, Sears began selling parts of Allstate and Dean Witter, eventually distributing the rest to shareholders. It sold the Discover card, Coldwell Banker, the Sears mortgage banking group and Prodigy, an online portal developed by IBM. In 2003, Sears sold its own brand and associated brand card portfolio, accounting for 60% of its annual profits – to Citigroup for $ 3 billion in cash. The company moved its headquarters to Hoffman Estates, Ill.
2005
Enter Edward Lampert
Edward S. Lampert, billionaire investor and largest shareholder of Kmart, has finished merging the retailer with Sears in a transaction of more than $ 11 billion, creating a company called Sears Holdings. A few years later, the economy has collapsed and e-commerce has grown in power. The shopping malls and caves of the Sears stores, which anchor many, have gradually lost their appeal. Sales at Sears, which Mr. Lampert had promised to be "unrecognizable" in 30 years, were soon inferior to those of his competitors.
2013
Sears gets nailed
Mr. Lampert became Managing Director, overseeing the company by far via videoconferencing and dividing the management hierarchy into several partitions, which would have caused conflicts between the departments regarding the resources of the company. Sears decided to leave Lands' End at the end of the year; the market value of the apparel company is now several times higher than that of Sears. Other companies, including Sears Hometown and Outlet and Sears Canada, have also been removed.
2015
The move of real estate
Mr. Lampert designed a real estate maneuver during which Sears sold 235 stores to $ 2.7 billion in cash at Seritage Growth Properties, a spin-off company created by Mr. Lampert and other investors. For a time, this group included Steven Mnuchin, now Treasury Secretary and roommate of Mr. Lampert at Yale. Seritage began redeveloping Sears and Kmart's preferred sites into more profitable multi-use properties while continuing to collect Sears' rent for stores that remained open. A lawsuit filed by shareholders over the transaction, which related to allegations of conflicts of interest, had been settled at $ 40 million in 2017. At that time, Mr. Lampert was promoting the transaction. a rewards program for members called Shop Your Way, which he hoped would turn the customer loyalty business.
2017
From savior to pirate
The company has expressed "substantial doubts" about its "ability to continue operations" after failing to make a profit since 2010, getting rid of brands like Craftsman and contracting more than $ 800 million in loans from Mr. Lampert and its hedge fund, ESL Investments. Acclaimed as the next Warren Buffett, but more and more described as a financial hijacker, Mr. Lampert was accused of having robbed Sears of his holdings. Whirlpool, a Sears partner since 1916, has stopped selling its appliances through the chain.
2018
Last gasps
In a steady stream of announcements about planned store closures in the last few years and partnerships with Amazon, Mr. Lampert has heighten his warnings about a possible bankruptcy
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