THE BEST INVESTOR OF HIS GENERATION: SO WHAT IS HE DOING WITH SEARS?

摘要

The mood was tense at the bel age hotel in West Hollywood, Calif., early last year. The top two dozen executives of Sears Roebuck & Co. were gathering for a strategy session with Eddie Lam-pert, then 42, the billionaire hedge fund manager who had just engineered an unlikely takeover of their venerable but struggling company. The fact that the vehicle of his acquisition was discounter Kmart—which Lampert had come out of nowhere to snatch control of during bankruptcy—was only one source of unease. Once their presentations started, Lampert also began poking holes in virtually every idea. "What's the benefit of that?" he asked again and again. "What's the value?" He shot down a modest $2 million proposal to improve lighting in the stores. "Why invest in that?" He skewered a plan to sell DVDs at a discounted price to better compete with Target and Wal-Mart. "It doesn't matter what Target and Wal-Mart do," he declared.