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Building the Sears Tower was a bad idea. It ended up being a waste of money. Reading those articles it's clear that they were hemorrhaging money in 1990, compar
by xigency 9y ago
Building the Sears Tower was a bad idea. It ended up being a waste of money. Reading those articles it's clear that they were hemorrhaging money in 1990, compared to being profitable 20 years earlier.
- adventured 9y agoThey weren't hemorrhaging money at the time. Sears was profitable from 1980 to 1990, including fiscal 1990. 1990 is approximately the year when their earnings started to plunge toward losses. Earnings nearly got cut in half from 1989 vs 1990. At the time Walmart was still the #2 retailer, having just passed Kmart (for the curious, Walmart went from $32b in sales for 1990 to $485b by 2015; now Walmart is in a position where their earnings are falling and sales growth has been flat for years as Amazon starts to eat into them). This NY Times article from January 1991, describes the atmosphere well: http://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/28/business/big-change-is-expected-for-sears.html http://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/28/business/big-change-is-exp...
- CydeWeys 9y agoThe Sears Tower was built in 1970-1973 though? I'm still not seeing what it had to do with the profitability of the company in 1990. And you originally said that leaving it was a bad idea, not constructing it.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]