[jeffbee]

Well, the guy who bought Sears did it the other way around, lending Sears a lot of money on secured loans and taking the interest out, as well as taking out cash through stock buybacks. But the process is similar: gain a majority stake in a company by whatever means are available, appoint yourself as the chief executive, and manage the company with the goal of enriching yourself, rather than with growing the company.

The structure of the Sears deal was really interesting and suspicious. Sears bought a small number of Kmart stores for an enormous cash price, which sent Kmart stock into orbit, then Lampert used the inflated Kmart stock to acquire Sears. Pretty shady.

Another difference is Lampert is a black sheep, but Mitt Romney is for some reason still socially accepted despite having wrecked dozens of American companies.

[lotsofpulp]

I would like to see evidence that Lampert actually made a decent return on Sears. Seems like he would have done much better for a lot less work buying VOO.

[acomjean]

Mitt ended up Governor of my state (Massachusetts). He did ok as Governor and oddly got us universal health care, which the federal Affordable Cares Act is based on, which I guess made him more palatable.

Our democratic governor Deval Patrick went to work for Bain after he left office.