He's been a big-time investor in the retail sector for more than 15 years and was chairman of Kmart after it emerged from bankruptcy about a decade ago. A few years later, he paired it with once-dominant Sears.
Yet even as Eddie Lampert is poised next month to add the role of chief executive to that of chairman at retail giant Sears Holdings, he's still characterized generally as just a hedge fund guy.
This, Lampert suggested in a rare interview Tuesday, fails to acknowledge changes in the 21st century retail industry as well as the Hoffman Estates-based company he seeks to revive.
"The most successful guy in retail right now is Jeff Bezos, and he was a (Wall Street) hedge fund guy," Lampert, 50, said by phone. "I think a lot of times when people talk about merchants it's almost a nostalgic look back at the time where the world moved at a very different pace and information was very different."
Lampert has decided to succeed Lou D'Ambrosio, who is leaving to tend to a family health issue. Critics complain that this is just the latest missed opportunity to have a world-class merchandiser run the struggling company.
"So it's Eddie Lampert who's going to be there, and he's a smart guy and insightful when it comes to doing deals, but he doesn't have a track record at running a retail operation," said Evan Mann, an analyst with Gimme Credit.
Lampert argues that a new kind of sales, one that encompasses e-commerce, traditional bricks-and-mortar, mobile and more, requires a new kind of merchant.
"Trying to move the volume of products we're talking about from place to place to get it ultimately into the customer's hands, to price these items, to market these items, I think the retail business is incredibly complex," Lampert said. "But if you get it right, it's a beautiful thing."
"I'm not denying that there are still great merchants," he said. "But to operate a company of the size of Sears Holdings or Wal-Mart or Target or Home Depot or Lowe's, you need a combination of skills, and each of those skills needs to be sufficiently strong."
Lampert can make the case that he is a modern-day merchant. He still hasn't proved he's a good one. For six successive years, Sears Holdings has seen no top-line growth, due to slipping sales and store closings.
"I understand and I appreciate people looking at same-store sales as an indicator," D'Ambrosio said during the call. "I think when you look at the financial shape of the company, there's clear progress."
D'Ambrosio noted four consecutive quarters of EBITDA growth and the fact the company raised $1.8 billion of liquidity in 2012 while reducing net debt by $400 million.
Overshadowed in Monday's news of the leadership change were other glimmers of hope: Sears' domestic comparable-store sales for the nine weeks ended Dec. 29 were up 0.5 percent.
Meanwhile, the strategy of technological convergence, which included a loyalty program, has yielded a wellspring of consumer data and changed customers' relationship with the retailer. Kmart and U.S. Sears' online sales are up 20 percent.
"It's never a good time for a transition, but what I would tell you is, five years ago, we put in place a more distributed leadership structure," Lampert said. "Despite what people may have said or written, there is a difference between a chairman role and a CEO role, and I've never been in the CEO role in this company."
D'Ambrosio predicted Lampert will offer strategic continuity. But handicappers have long questioned whether the old horse had any giddy-up left in its step to catch up to and keep pace with Wal-Mart, Target and Amazon.
And not to beat a dead metaphor, but the suspicion among many all along has been that Lampert saw neither a thoroughbred nor tireless workhorse in the parent of Sears and Kmart as so many parts to be cut up, boiled down and sold off.
"I was very clear why we put these companies together and what our goals were," Lampert said. "It was really to allow both Sears and Kmart to compete in what I thought was going to be a more challenging but evolving industry. The framework which was placed upon me and the company was: 'OK, this was all about real estate. It's about selling real estate.' Then when we didn't sell real estate, it became: 'Well, they missed the opportunity in 2006, 2007 to sell the real estate.'
"I've never denied there was substantial real estate value in the company," he said. "Suffice it to say that … the most value can be created if we actually transform it."
Fortune in 2006 called Lampert "the best investor of his generation." A Forbes contributor last year ranked him No. 2 on a list of the worst CEOs, and while acknowledging Lampert was Sears Holdings' chairman and not CEO, the contributor argued that "Lampert has called the shots, he's missed every target" and that he had "destroyed Sears."
D'Ambrosio said he doesn't recognize the Lampert he sometimes sees described by critics.
"I've never worked with somebody who understands business models and how to re-imagine a business model and has a view on the way buying will change going forward better than Eddie," D'Ambrosio said.
It turns out, his image is the thing he's least interested in selling at Sears Holdings.
"I do think what we've been trying to do at the company has been very clear," Lampert said. "If people want to doubt it or put a spin on it, they're entitled to do it. We just have to perform."
philrosenthal@tribune.com
Twitter @phil_rosenthal
