JC Penney Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection

Predicting the demise of Sears & Kmart since 2017!
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Re: JC Penney Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection

Post by babs »

veteran+ wrote: July 30th, 2020, 8:10 am
babs wrote: July 29th, 2020, 10:54 pm
veteran+ wrote: July 29th, 2020, 6:44 am For the most part, I think there is a void in American retail that COVID has brutally exposed.

The sparsity of real talent in top management with their consistently poor decisions. Consolidation has only worsened the situation along with a whole bunch of systemic issues that have a long history of not working.

Everything from Executive compensation to shareholder profit to incompetent R&D to poor retention and training of employees to NOT really listening to their customers, etc etc etc.

This bandaid on a festering wound will not work. Can't help but feel bad for JCP...............but this is their own doing and it started quite a while ago.
I don't agree with you on this. Just look to places like Target, Costco, Walmart, these companies all have great talent throughout their organizations. As for other retailers, the issues go much deeper. One of two things is going on. One, these old line retailers often have a culture that discourages out of the box thinking. They have talent but being safe gets you promoted. Second, when retailers run into trouble, they often don't have the money to fix things. JCPenney's prototype store in Texas looks great. But they don't have the money to roll it out. Not sure if it would be able to save them but these guys don't have the billions to overhaul all their stores so while they have one revolutionary store, the rest are dull, rundown and flat out depressing.
There are exceptions but they are few.

Costco would be one of them.

In comparison with similar formats, Target is not too bad depending on the store. I was not impressed with customer service in San Diego or Los Angeles..........at all. Also fewer and fewer employees.

Walmart? I categorically disagree!
Your original post was about corporate staff. There is talent there. I've talked to many people over the years who know their stuff. Now store level employees are a different beast. When you pay near minimum wage, you don't get a great staff. Store level employees are often the folks who make or break a store. And often they are the most overlooked.
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Re: JC Penney Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection

Post by babs »

pseudo3d wrote: July 30th, 2020, 9:07 pm
Super S wrote: July 30th, 2020, 2:24 pm Very well said. JCPenney and Macy's have some stores that are simply too large to be devoted to mostly clothing.
...and yet I still can't find anything that I like AND in my size, even in 70k-100k square foot stores.

So apparently JCPenney denies the Sycamore rumor, but the bidders are still secret. Bet they're all private equity firms who will just delay the inevitable (at best, worse case is just stripping it apart for assets...I can almost imagine Lampert buying it and converting the remaining Sears stores into JCPenney)...but I'm also wondering if it's a left-field choice (like Kroger or Walmart) to buy the stores.
I'm still placing my bet on Brookfield and Simon putting together a winning bid. They have the most to lose if JCPenney goes away.
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Re: JC Penney Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection

Post by storewanderer »

Went into the Reno JCP today. The store was a literal morgue with few employees and even fewer customers. They seem to have gotten rid of some of their women's clearance merchandise, there is now an entire rack missing. They still have a ton and the racks are very full. Nothing was on the floor anymore. It is great that after about six months they finally decided to clean this area up a little. Bathing suits continue to be hidden behind the clearance racks and winter coats are more prominently displayed.

I can't speak for the second floor of the store. The "up" escalator was broken and blocked off and signage directed you to go to the elevator to get upstairs. There was no active work taking place on the "up" escalator. No way I am going in an elevator at this time. The down escalator was on and working. They should have shut that off and made it into a two way traffic "staircase." I am sure there are others who also do not want to go into an elevator at this time.
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Re: JC Penney Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection

Post by Alpha8472 »

That is a wise idea as there have been studies in China that show that people who lived alone caught COVID-19 just by riding empty elevators. The virus was lingering in the stale elevator air long enough to transmit the virus. Also those cruise ships had shared air conditioned air which spread it throughout the ship.

Those JCPenney stores are so old that I am sure that the air conditioning is recirculating stale air throughout the store. Ever notice how their stores are so musty and stale? The entire shopping experience is stuffy and uncomfortable.
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Re: JC Penney Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection

Post by veteran+ »

babs wrote: July 30th, 2020, 10:38 pm
veteran+ wrote: July 30th, 2020, 8:10 am
babs wrote: July 29th, 2020, 10:54 pm

I don't agree with you on this. Just look to places like Target, Costco, Walmart, these companies all have great talent throughout their organizations. As for other retailers, the issues go much deeper. One of two things is going on. One, these old line retailers often have a culture that discourages out of the box thinking. They have talent but being safe gets you promoted. Second, when retailers run into trouble, they often don't have the money to fix things. JCPenney's prototype store in Texas looks great. But they don't have the money to roll it out. Not sure if it would be able to save them but these guys don't have the billions to overhaul all their stores so while they have one revolutionary store, the rest are dull, rundown and flat out depressing.
There are exceptions but they are few.

Costco would be one of them.

In comparison with similar formats, Target is not too bad depending on the store. I was not impressed with customer service in San Diego or Los Angeles..........at all. Also fewer and fewer employees.

Walmart? I categorically disagree!
Your original post was about corporate staff. There is talent there. I've talked to many people over the years who know their stuff. Now store level employees are a different beast. When you pay near minimum wage, you don't get a great staff. Store level employees are often the folks who make or break a store. And often they are the most overlooked.
We will just disagree.

They may know their stuff but how they execute is another thing. Again, Costco is consistently the exception. Target is better than many but has many issues not addressed.

If talent at the top fails to trickle down to the store level we have a mixed bag of results.
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Re: JC Penney Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection

Post by Super S »

A list of 163 locations has been released for a possible mid-September auction. This includes the Mother Store in Kemmerer, Wyoming:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaellis ... b044bf521c

Hopefully, if that Kemmerer store does end up closing, somebody can step in and at least preserve it as a museum.
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Re: JC Penney Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection

Post by storewanderer »

I guess the stores up for auction are not explicitly closing, it is just a package of real estate for sale. But I don't see anything there about them leasing back the property. And a lease with a bankrupt company doesn't mean much so I don't know who would buy these buildings with the intention of continuing to lease them to the bankrupt company JC Penney.

The original store- how much money can that possibly even be worth? It is a classless move to sell the original store.
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Re: JC Penney Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection

Post by J-Man »

All of the stores on the list have a "built/occupied" date in the month/2-digit year format. The Kemmerer store is shown as APR-02. Anyone who was unfamiliar with the history of the company would assume it was built in 2002, not 1902.
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Re: JC Penney Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection

Post by storewanderer »

J-Man wrote: August 5th, 2020, 9:44 am All of the stores on the list have a "built/occupied" date in the month/2-digit year format. The Kemmerer store is shown as APR-02. Anyone who was unfamiliar with the history of the company would assume it was built in 2002, not 1902.
It will be interesting to see if some investors get confused and take the building thinking it is less than 20 years old.

I am sure the store wasn't selling much merchandise... but also doubt it cost much of anything to operate it given it was on owned real estate.

I wonder what they will do with all of the old accessories, signs, and photos from inside the store. They should take those items and relocate them elsewhere. Given what this company usually does, and its attitude, I doubt they will do the right thing and preserve the stuff.

Definitely scraping the bottom to sell off/close this store. Seriously doubt they will get much money for it.
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Re: JC Penney Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection

Post by Super S »

storewanderer wrote: August 5th, 2020, 5:47 pm
J-Man wrote: August 5th, 2020, 9:44 am All of the stores on the list have a "built/occupied" date in the month/2-digit year format. The Kemmerer store is shown as APR-02. Anyone who was unfamiliar with the history of the company would assume it was built in 2002, not 1902.
It will be interesting to see if some investors get confused and take the building thinking it is less than 20 years old.

I am sure the store wasn't selling much merchandise... but also doubt it cost much of anything to operate it given it was on owned real estate.

I wonder what they will do with all of the old accessories, signs, and photos from inside the store. They should take those items and relocate them elsewhere. Given what this company usually does, and its attitude, I doubt they will do the right thing and preserve the stuff.

Definitely scraping the bottom to sell off/close this store. Seriously doubt they will get much money for it.
Given the location and size, the merchandise mix they had was probably more locally tailored than a typical JCPenney store. Kemmerer really doesn't have many other options.

The right thing to do, if the store does end up closing, would be to turn it in to a museum.
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