They just pulled in $400 million for an asset nobody thought had value and not a single comment? My my how sentiment on this board has changed since page 1. Feeling more and more like we’ve reached max capitulation (especially with Berkowitz blowing out) and there’s a lot of money to be made here given some of the recent moves to equitize debt as high as the 2L’s.
He keeps the SHLD bonfire burning longer than I would have expected, but that unlikely changes the ultimate outcome. From the looks of it, this is the at least partial sale of the SYW program.
At the risk of overly simplifying a complex and unknown outcome.. I think something like this needs to be broken down in two parts. First would be understanding different paths of a restructuring (in-court or not) and what that would mean for the equity and debt in the near-term. The market and balance sheet values diverged pretty significantly due to Berkowitz liquidations which opened up options for ESL to maybe create value for the equity to the detriment of bond holders. It was telling that Berkowitz did not exchange his notes. With so much debt trading at half of par and various transactions that included significant conversion of debt to equity you can pencil out some interesting outcomes that are probable given Lampert's background and recent actions. What happens after this restructuring is anyone's guess but there's not much point in focusing on their inevitable demise when they're in the middle of significantly reducing liabilities that the market thinks would make this a zero... When these transactions are all said and done it will be easier to figure out whether they were for nothing and the retail operations will continue bleeding enough to kill the rest of the business. I don't know what the odds are on stabilizing the retail ops but if you can pay a $200 million stub (I guess closer to $400 million today without accounting for potential dilution) with at least a couple billion coming in while reducing net debt by taking advantage of the bond conditions there are probably much better than 50/50 odds of doing well here in the short-term. The upside on stabilizing the retail ops is so large that even small odds of success there makes this more interesting because you're likely to make money on the first leg of this trade (buying during distress with Berkowitz liquidations and the debt restructuring) with a free look at what comps start looking like later this year. If they turn positive for some reason I imagine this sucker will really fly but at least I don't have to worry about paying up for that like everyone else at $30-40+/share.
I think if someone looked at this with fresh eyes and took away any bias the reception would be a lot different. Just look at all the interviews Lampert has done recently. He's 1) opened himself up to fradulent conveyence risk once again, and 2) specifically said he does not think a bankruptcy is in the cards anytime soon. Doesn't seem like a bad time to bet against consensus.
