Potential multiple takeover bids for Kohl's

Predicting the demise of Sears & Kmart since 2017!
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bryceleinan
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Re: Potential multiple takeover bids for Kohl's

Post by bryceleinan »

submariner wrote: March 16th, 2022, 11:15 am
veteran+ wrote: February 27th, 2022, 9:16 am There is also a frequent shortage of men's pants with 28-to-30-inch waists and long inseams (32 to 34 ").
My curse in mainstream retail... Big and Tall sections are a joke... it's more like Big OR Tall. You're not allowed to be both.
Hahaha, I hear you there. I was disappointed when Fred Meyer got rid of their big and tall stuff. I either shop at DXL or Carhartt now for that reason - can't find stuff otherwise. Kohl's and Penney's aren't as good for that stuff.
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Re: Potential multiple takeover bids for Kohl's

Post by rwsandiego »

bryceleinan wrote: March 16th, 2022, 2:01 pm
submariner wrote: March 16th, 2022, 11:15 am
veteran+ wrote: February 27th, 2022, 9:16 am There is also a frequent shortage of men's pants with 28-to-30-inch waists and long inseams (32 to 34 ").
My curse in mainstream retail... Big and Tall sections are a joke... it's more like Big OR Tall. You're not allowed to be both.
Hahaha, I hear you there. I was disappointed when Fred Meyer got rid of their big and tall stuff. I either shop at DXL or Carhartt now for that reason - can't find stuff otherwise. Kohl's and Penney's aren't as good for that stuff.
I received a survey asking if I knew Kohl's sold tall sizes. (I didn't.) So, I looked at their website, checked out the selection, took the survey, and when they asked for comments, I said "improve your tall size merchandise." It is really bad. Dillard's and sometimes Nordstrom are my tall size go-to's. At 6'4" with a 36" waist, 37" sleeves, and a 37" inseam it is hard to find clothes elsewhere. I find DXL to be hit-or-miss. They have great selections in the larger sizes (and kudos to them for doing so - too often big man's clothes look downright ridiculous) but not so much in the XL-Tall sizes.

Circling back to the topic, I ventured into a Kohls for the first time in a couple of years and was shocked. It used to be a fun place to shop, but this time around most of what they had was a bunch of second-rate junk. They did have something I was looking for (Circulon Dutch oven) but it was only the one item. Their woes would indicate I am not the only customer experiencing this phenomenon.
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Re: Potential multiple takeover bids for Kohl's

Post by Super S »

bryceleinan wrote: March 16th, 2022, 2:01 pm
submariner wrote: March 16th, 2022, 11:15 am
veteran+ wrote: February 27th, 2022, 9:16 am There is also a frequent shortage of men's pants with 28-to-30-inch waists and long inseams (32 to 34 ").
My curse in mainstream retail... Big and Tall sections are a joke... it's more like Big OR Tall. You're not allowed to be both.
Hahaha, I hear you there. I was disappointed when Fred Meyer got rid of their big and tall stuff. I either shop at DXL or Carhartt now for that reason - can't find stuff otherwise. Kohl's and Penney's aren't as good for that stuff.
I agree 100%. Big & Tall seems to be disappearing from more and more stores. It's sad when a typical Walmart has more in the way of Big & Tall clothing, and that isn't really saying much. Kohl's has been terrible in this regard for years, as has Macy's, and this was one of the few reasons I ever made purchases at JCPenney. Fred Meyer has the double whammy of getting rid of larger sizes and many name brands. I have resorted to buying work clothes online after encountering a lack of sizes at the larger stores in both Portland and the Seattle areas. This is one way the larger (100K square feet+) stores could better merchandise their stores...
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Re: Potential multiple takeover bids for Kohl's

Post by Romr123 »

I shopped DXL and Nordstrom back-to-back (DXL had mailed a coupon) and was interested to find the identical merchandise (7 for all mankind) jeans, same style and size (38/32), $140 at DXL and $99 at Nordstrom. That price at Nordstrom was every day, and DXL is a coupon/club/... type retailer, so you could doubtless end up OTD at roughly the same price.
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Re: Potential multiple takeover bids for Kohl's

Post by ClownLoach »

First off this is the best headline yet. "A Slightly Better Version of Mediocre."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevendenn ... iocre/amp/

It sounds like this Investors Day presentation has become a full fledged investor revolt and we have a bidding war opening up to put this sad leadership team out to pasture. News this afternoon is that Hudson's Bay (a company that maybe ten years ago was struggling and rumored to possibly be acquired by Kohl's) is making a bid for the company. Sycamore is also rumored to bid (aren't the one of the JCP owners now?) but they don't sound like they're going to get it.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/16/kohls-s ... hterm=Kohl
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Re: Potential multiple takeover bids for Kohl's

Post by pseudo3d »

ClownLoach wrote: March 17th, 2022, 2:03 pm First off this is the best headline yet. "A Slightly Better Version of Mediocre."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevendenn ... iocre/amp/

It sounds like this Investors Day presentation has become a full fledged investor revolt and we have a bidding war opening up to put this sad leadership team out to pasture. News this afternoon is that Hudson's Bay (a company that maybe ten years ago was struggling and rumored to possibly be acquired by Kohl's) is making a bid for the company. Sycamore is also rumored to bid (aren't the one of the JCP owners now?) but they don't sound like they're going to get it.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/16/kohls-s ... hterm=Kohl
I think Sycamore bid for JCP and wanted to merge it with Belk but ultimately didn’t get it.

Also, I can’t think of any examples near me but Kohl’s new policy of physically downsizing their stores and leasing out space gives off the air of desperation a la early/mid 2010s Sears. If they wanted to do that they need store-within-a-store partners to drive traffic, and for the most part the stores are still in decent physical condition that they wouldn’t need extensive construction.
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Re: Potential multiple takeover bids for Kohl's

Post by ClownLoach »

pseudo3d wrote: March 17th, 2022, 6:30 pm
ClownLoach wrote: March 17th, 2022, 2:03 pm First off this is the best headline yet. "A Slightly Better Version of Mediocre."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevendenn ... iocre/amp/

It sounds like this Investors Day presentation has become a full fledged investor revolt and we have a bidding war opening up to put this sad leadership team out to pasture. News this afternoon is that Hudson's Bay (a company that maybe ten years ago was struggling and rumored to possibly be acquired by Kohl's) is making a bid for the company. Sycamore is also rumored to bid (aren't the one of the JCP owners now?) but they don't sound like they're going to get it.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/16/kohls-s ... hterm=Kohl
I think Sycamore bid for JCP and wanted to merge it with Belk but ultimately didn’t get it.

Also, I can’t think of any examples near me but Kohl’s new policy of physically downsizing their stores and leasing out space gives off the air of desperation a la early/mid 2010s Sears. If they wanted to do that they need store-within-a-store partners to drive traffic, and for the most part the stores are still in decent physical condition that they wouldn’t need extensive construction.
Store within a store is easy. What Kohl's has been trumpeting (besides "we're not a department store anymore!") is walling off space and opening a separate store for another tenant in the hopes that they will drive Kohl's traffic. That is full blown heavy duty construction if done correctly as most cities will require, plus we have talked about the leasing problems. If they're in a center with a grocery store for example they will have exclusive right to food sales, if they're with a fitness center they'll have exclusive rights to gyms, etc.. I really think this is all just PR speak to try to appease the analysts by telling them they have "ideas", at this point the analysts see so many problems with low hanging fruit they aren't digging deeper. They don't have to spend the time fact checking these preposterous "split the store" proposals for feasibility when they don't feel that the chain in any condition is feasible as a going concern.
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Re: Potential multiple takeover bids for Kohl's

Post by storewanderer »

ClownLoach wrote: March 20th, 2022, 8:56 am
Store within a store is easy. What Kohl's has been trumpeting (besides "we're not a department store anymore!") is walling off space and opening a separate store for another tenant in the hopes that they will drive Kohl's traffic. That is full blown heavy duty construction if done correctly as most cities will require, plus we have talked about the leasing problems. If they're in a center with a grocery store for example they will have exclusive right to food sales, if they're with a fitness center they'll have exclusive rights to gyms, etc.. I really think this is all just PR speak to try to appease the analysts by telling them they have "ideas", at this point the analysts see so many problems with low hanging fruit they aren't digging deeper. They don't have to spend the time fact checking these preposterous "split the store" proposals for feasibility when they don't feel that the chain in any condition is feasible as a going concern.
All the analysts have to do is go walk through a store and see what is going on.

If any of them were in Sears about 5 years ago, it will seem alarmingly similar.

What surprises me with Kohls is the speed of the decline. It happened so quickly...
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Re: Potential multiple takeover bids for Kohl's

Post by storewanderer »

Saw one of these Kohl's+Sephora units. They put the Sephora right inside the entrance and they replace all of the exterior signs. The space looks perhaps slightly larger than JCP but similar somewhat awkward configuration impacting line of sight around it/into the rest of the store and traffic flow impact. Sephora definitely looks more in place inside the 2000's looking Kohl's facility than they looked inside the very dated 1980's looking JCP units.

Despite that I do not see this helping Kohl's many current challenges.

I do not recall JCP having any exterior signs regarding Sephora.
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Re: Potential multiple takeover bids for Kohl's

Post by ClownLoach »

storewanderer wrote: March 30th, 2022, 11:47 pm I do not recall JCP having any exterior signs regarding Sephora.
This initiative is going to be a net negative for everyone involved, resulting in a drastic overstoreing of Beauty and damaging all of the involved brands. The divorce from JCP made sense. Promoting the Sephora brand on the building was probably something that the previous egotistical JCP leadership thought would take away from their value price image. Of course this already just tells how bad of a combination low end JCP and high end premium priced Sephora were together if they shouldn't cross promote each other. Sephora of course took an image hit as well being associated with low end JCP.

Sephora is generally only salon quality, higher end brands in a smaller boutique environment. Ulta has everything Sephora does except the absolute most premium lines - but this is coupled with the same consumer level brands you would find at CVS or Target. You can get everything from Pantene to Paul Mitchell at Ulta and they smartly feature a Men's department as well in center store to prevent husbands from escaping while their wife shops.

The Kohl's + Sephora tieup so far seems to be entirely focused on dropping a Sephora next to, or across from an Ulta. They so far seem to be ignoring the stores that are not near an Ulta, and also do not appear to be taking store volume into account as I have seen busier Kohl's in better centers where Ulta isn't present passed up. It would seem that they would focus on busy Kohl's without nearby Ulta in good locations first (I know busy is relative but work with me here). Because they are not explicitly building a separate suite it might be a way to circumvent exclusive right lease restrictions Ulta puts in place to protect their business. In Rossmoor, a mostly older and upscale retirement community, Ulta is about 200 feet away from door to door with the new Kohl's + Sephora. Target and CVS are directly across the street. A good local independent already closed their doors next to Target before Sephora even set up. There are way too many cosmetics specialists here now. The preexisting stores will all see share drop because of the overlap while the newcomers at Sephora won't attain anything close to a typical standalone store volume. Underperformance for all!

Sephora and Ulta are adopting the same scorched earth strategy that Office Depot and Staples did a couple of decades ago. They are going to be primarily next to each other or across the street from each other. Before you generally would see Sephora in a mall and Ulta off mall so there was separation. Now they're on each other's off mall turf.

And now Ulta is retaliating with a Target tie up. This makes a lot more sense as they share the same tier of customer. So far this is working the right way - they are adding Ulta only under the same roof if there isn't an existing location or Sephora nearby. This is the only path to success here.

I think this is going to end the same way it did for Office Depot, Office Max, and Staples. Not well for anyone involved. I suspect that Sephora was booted from JCP locations now that they are owned by mall managers who would rather rent vacant inside mall space to Sephora. They couldn't afford to deleverage and lose all that sales volume even though the majority of it probably came from their own stores not the JCP locations. So they had to go out and start a new bad marriage and the only desperate partner on the market was Kohl's.

What a mess this is going to be!
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