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JCP


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2013 Jul 10, 1:51am   49,012 views  111 comments

by SFace   ➕follow (7)   💰tip   ignore  

This is a stock I have been following closely for a long time. Bought when Soros bought and sold before the last earning and made 40% in one month. I have been thinking about them a lot lately and now recommend a strong buy. Here’s a summary of my reasoning and material background.

Who’s long?

Soros and Ackman. A 25% stake held by two of the most respected investor is a good reason for me. Ackman changed my family when (I mom, brothers and close friends, in law) placed a bet on GGP when they announced bankruptcy and promptly went on for a fourty bagger in 4 years using the same reasoning applied by Ackman (real estate was worth too much). If there is a question that asks who is your favorite author, it would be Soros (albeit someone writes on his behalf)

JCP Background (Permanent of Temporary problems)?

JCP has a 100+ year background. 1,100+ department stores scattered throughout the United States and an online store via JCP.com. Over the years, they used their equity to purchase 400+ stores and own the HQ and distribution facilities. The non-owned stores are likely on long term lease with long term options and likely very favorable. In a nutshell, their cost structure is as favorable as any retailer out there. Basically at a market cap of 3.7B, you are getting Penney at less than 4M per department store and $4sale/market cap and an enterprise value above shares (if you count the true market value of real estate that is not marked-up on the balance sheet). The market is pricing Penney like it would be dead (which may or may not be the case). So obviously understanding whether Penney’s problems are permanent vs. temporary is of great interest to me.

The demise of JCP

The great recession impacted everyone including JCP. It hit JCP consumers especially hard unlike Macy’s whose customers are more upscale and wealthy. Unlike the rest that recovered from the recession, JCP sank further and is especially painful given the bull market in 2009-2013.

Long story short, Ackman kicked out Ullman and Ron Johnson was brought on board. Ron brought his own team from Apple and installed his expensive and risky vision and likely created a hostile work environoment bewteen Ullmans and Johnson's people. The strategy employed by JCP should be studied by every business school now in America as it is fascinating. (When I was in college, Dell and IBM was the study case, but now, JCP and BBRY would be my study). The huge difference between Apple retail and JCP retail is about 1M SKU’s and customers that seek the deals. Apple sells Iphone, Ipad, Ibook for the same $599, 1,099 price and sells itself. JCP is a completely different beast. Ron Johnson’s fit was a disaster and under his watch, burned through 1B in capex and burned through another 1B in operating losses and alienated customers. Revenue went from the 17B’s to 12B, practically unheard of in the retail industry to fall that far that fast. SSS was negative 25%. The financial metric was an outright disaster and the PR was a disaster. Further, Johnson got into some legal issues with Martha Stewart and Macy. If there was ever a board you want to be a fly on the wall, JCP was the one to see what the Board asks and how Johnson responded. In March, Johnson out and familiar face Ullman in. Penney was described as a disaster, mess and much worst. Soros buy.

Here was some of JCP’s problems:

•Fair and square pricing in lieu of discounts on top of discounts. This was a bad maneuver. Customers like to feel like they got a deal and there are customers that buy and not look at price tag. In the first category, you lose customers who are trained on feeling like they got a deal, in the second category, you underpriced the product and lost revenue. The retail world sells inventory in full retail price when it is fresh off the shelves and discount it to get rid of it. It is the straightforward and proven way to manage inventory. When you sell 100K different things, that is the only way to go. This is a temporary problem not a perm problem.

•Cap-ex and shop in shop. In all fairness, Johnson was either going to be a hero or a zero. The shop in shop concept is actually well deployed in places like Asia and successful, it gives branded retailers incentive and push to partner with JCP. Ullman already started with the Sephora make-up store and by all accounts, it was successful. Johnson pressed the button to cap-ex the home store, clothing store and children’s store. It’s probably one of the biggest riskiest bet for retail. (huge cap-ex, taking out floor space and sacrifice performance and you have customers that may not accept the new brands). The dumped St. John which was a basic men's category which was a huge mistake.

A lot of the cash burn and SSS was expected. That strategy is yet to be determined. I have been visiting JCP a lot lately in different areas of town and observing traffic and conversion. I went on mother’s day and father’s day to further look at foot traffic and conversions as those are key dates to department stores. It’s been mixed.

Overall, I’m a believer in the strategy. Once the home store are all in business, the Disney stores comes in for back to school and all the shops are in place for the critical holiday season, JCP may be in business and I would not be surprise they can get back from 12B – 17B. It takes 6 months of planning to deliver results as decisions are made now for the critical holiday month and JCP is as focused as it has ever been in 100 years. lol A good friend of mine works at Levi’s and they are pleased with the Levis store at JCP and am working hard to increase traffic there specifically. More so than selling more jeans to Macy's as they have more reasons to see JCP do well than Macy's.

• Win back lost customers: I don’t think consumer hold any grudge against JCP. In the end, JCP is an anchor store on one of the wing. They’ll come as long as the consumer confidence and economic environment is fine and get used to shopping by brand instead of category. bring back what works for the older shoppers and continue to engage the younger shopper it was trying to appeal to. It’s a matter of getting the right product at the right price and become cusomer focused. It’s not terribly new anyway as Macy’s have their branded stores anyway.

• Retail climate. JCP is shielded from Europe and Asia so their health is based solely on the American consumer and betting on the american middle class. Online stores have been eating everyone but I don’t think malls are going away, just need to be righsized. It helps JCP that fair market act are coming on board (possibly) and Obamacare penalty provision are delayed another year. The US tax system,(inluding locally) and policies will be generally supportive of domestic business that hires American workers.

So I’ve convinced myself to buy JCP again (thinks the big issues are temporary). It is a great risk vs. reward play. I really think by back to school and this Christmas, JCP will be clearly trending up again. They have a lot of press lately and I think they have a legit shot once all the stores, marketing, promotions, brands are finally on line at the same time (by back to school). Downside $12 by December and upside $30 if it is clear their turnaround efforts are (not)working and funds will come on board big time.

I am long @ a tad under $17. (Sold for $13 when Ackman was out) Good luck.

#politics

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55   Goran_K   2013 Aug 14, 5:55am  

hanera says

AAPL is a retail stock, traders love it now.

He's referring to big box retail.

56   Hysteresis   2013 Aug 27, 3:13pm  

anyone that bought on july 10th when this was posted and sold today would be down 22.76%.

ackman bought at $25 and sold his entire position at ~$12.50/share, which means he stands to lose $470 million dollars. lol.

57   Eman   2013 Aug 28, 3:04am  

Hysteresis says

anyone that bought on july 10th when this was posted and sold today would be down 22.76%.

ackman bought at $25 and sold his entire position at ~$12.50/share, which means he stands to lose $470 million dollars. lol.

So that makes you smarter than Ackman?

58   SFace   2013 Aug 28, 8:55am  

E-man says

So that makes you smarter than Ackman?

Yeah, well Ackman will say, he bought GGP in 2009 for 35 red cents to $1.50 a share (72M shares) and made $1.3B. or a 20 bagger.

He still has 68M shares and sitting on 1.1B in unrealized gains. He will probably sell some GGP to match the capital loss from JCP.

Prem Watsa, Canada's Warren Buffet is getting killed by Blackberry too. The lesson is to learn from mistakes. Never buy in a "sell" signal, I got burned from it. FB was flashing all kinds of buy signal and got rewarded. Technicals matter.

59   Goran_K   2013 Aug 28, 10:13am  

Hysteresis says

anyone that bought on july 10th when this was posted and sold today would be down 22.76%.

ackman bought at $25 and sold his entire position at ~$12.50/share, which means he stands to lose $470 million dollars. lol.

The best "lol" about it all is that Ackman is partly responsible for the implosion of the JCP board, and I KNEW he would cause this type of trouble over Ron Johnson even before SFace started this thread.

What a child.

60   Eman   2013 Sep 4, 3:20pm  

OnTheFence says

Bought at $17.08

@onthefence,

If you still have JCP, it's time to throw in the towel. Take your loss and put the money in another stock. The trend is not your friend.

61   Goran_K   2013 Sep 4, 4:52pm  

Or you could just say you never bought it in the first place like E-man, then your losses would be zero!

Funny thing is JCP since it went below 13, is actually up 6% over the last week in a mini-rally.

62   Iwag   2013 Sep 4, 4:59pm  

E-man says

Ok. I'm in. Now I'm debating between 1k or 2k shares. Probably 1k shares in my account & 1k shares in wifey's account.

yeah take stock advice from this guy, sure winner!!!

63   Hysteresis   2013 Sep 4, 5:38pm  

Iwag says

E-man says

Ok. I'm in. Now I'm debating between 1k or 2k shares. Probably 1k shares in my account & 1k shares in wifey's account.

yeah take stock advice from this guy, sure winner!!!

no kidding. a follower without an independent thought will never be a good investor.

64   Eman   2013 Sep 9, 3:25pm  

3 guys with woman's attitude. Tsk tsk tsk. I feel sorry for your ladies. They deserve better.

65   Iwag   2013 Sep 9, 11:42pm  

e-man do you lie to your wife about your stock picks too? does she deserve better?

you also know no one will ever believe you about your investment moves again right? because you were exposed as a liar

66   Iwag   2013 Sep 15, 3:20pm  

E-man says

Look at how many friends I have on patnet compared to you.

Oh fuck! You got me there hahahahahaha

you have more pat net friends than me, oh woe is me, my life is overrrrr!!!!

as for the rest of the stuff, i dont believe a single word, sorry. you dont seem to have any investment acumen or skill as proven by this thread.

67   Hysteresis   2013 Sep 15, 7:20pm  

E-man says

3 guys with woman's attitude. Tsk tsk tsk. I feel sorry for your ladies. They deserve better.

so you're ignorant and sexist too. not surprising. the women i know are definitely smarter and better investors than you; so i take this as a compliment.

it's interesting you think losing money by blindly following ackman is the opposite of a woman's attitude. lol. i call it being a sheep that can't think for himself. to each their own!

68   Iwag   2013 Sep 16, 11:48pm  

Hysteresis says

so you're ignorant and sexist too. not surprising. the women i know are definitely smarter and better investors than you; so i take this as a compliment.

it's interesting you think losing money by blindly following ackman is the opposite of a woman's attitude. lol. i call it being a sheep that can't think for himself. to each their own!

hahahaha

this guy is trying to insult women like they are bad investors when he was caught red handed lying about one of his stock buys by goran

i dont believe a single word he types out, this guys investment accomplishments are as fake as a wooden leg,

69   FortWayne   2013 Sep 17, 9:33am  

Their Earning Per Share is -7.32

I don't really know how they make money, I am not in retail. But losing money isn't going to impress many people to buy shares.

71   Y   2013 Sep 23, 9:52am  

Shopping season around the corner. I recommend BUY.
Philistine says

Vornado and Pershing Square exiting JCP

http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2013/09/19/vorando-to-exit-remaing-stake-j-c-penney/?mod=yahoo_hs

72   FortWayne   2013 Sep 24, 4:48am  

SoftShell says

Shopping season around the corner. I recommend BUY.

Philistine says

Vornado and Pershing Square exiting JCP

http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2013/09/19/vorando-to-exit-remaing-stake-j-c-penney/?mod=yahoo_hs

Why would you simply not run like hell from their stock?

73   evilmonkeyboy   2013 Sep 27, 4:31pm  

Damn, down 13% today to $9.05 a share!

74   Y   2013 Sep 27, 11:07pm  

Shopping season around the corner. I recommend BUY.

75   evilmonkeyboy   2013 Sep 28, 1:39am  

You made that same recommendation on Monday when the stock was 30% higher.
SoftShell says

Shopping season around the corner. I recommend BUY.

76   Y   2013 Sep 28, 9:20am  

so you are getting it at a 30% discount.
quit bitching.

evilmonkeyboy says

You made that same recommendation on Monday when the stock was 30% higher.

SoftShell says

Shopping season around the corner. I recommend BUY.

77   evilmonkeyboy   2013 Oct 2, 1:44pm  

Looks like we just got another 4% discount since last week.
SoftShell says

so you are getting it at a 30% discount.

quit bitching.

evilmonkeyboy says

You made that same recommendation on Monday when the stock was 30% higher.

SoftShell says

Shopping season around the corner. I recommend BUY.

78   Y   2013 Oct 2, 1:50pm  

You are just dollar cost averaging....

evilmonkeyboy says

Looks like we just got another 4% discount since last week.

SoftShell says

so you are getting it at a 30% discount.

quit bitching.

evilmonkeyboy says

You made that same recommendation on Monday when the stock was 30% higher.

SoftShell says

Shopping season around the corner. I recommend BUY.

79   evilmonkeyboy   2013 Oct 6, 9:42am  

$7.86 as of Friday... SoftShell, am I correct in assuming that you are pot committed to this stock at this point?
SoftShell says

You are just dollar cost averaging....

evilmonkeyboy says

Looks like we just got another 4% discount since last week.

SoftShell says

so you are getting it at a 30% discount.

quit bitching.

evilmonkeyboy says

You made that same recommendation on Monday when the stock was 30% higher.

SoftShell says

Shopping season around the corner. I recommend BUY.

80   Y   2013 Oct 6, 2:36pm  

I don't smoke weed.

81   SFace   2013 Oct 17, 2:51am  

what a disaster call. The key is to cut bait. Fortunately that was in August when I went to the home store and all the shiny kitchen toys were way too expensive for the JCP customer.

82   Y   2013 Oct 17, 3:07am  

not really. if you followed the op's advice you would have cut out at 15ish...

SFace says

what a disaster call. The key is to cut bait. Fortunately that was in August when I went to the home store and all the shiny kitchen toys were way too expensive for the JCP customer.

83   Iwag   2013 Oct 24, 10:09am  

i just read this thread from the beginning and goran really destroyed sface and e-man badly roflmao

84   Iwag   2013 Oct 25, 6:58am  

and sface and e-man both deleted some of their post from earlier to hide their shame

85   B.A.C.A.H.   2013 Oct 25, 7:18am  

Whaddidu think SFace meant, anyway?

"S" is for save.

Save Face.

Now you know.

86   Y   2013 Oct 25, 7:35am  

Must be why he has never responded to any of ApocolyspeFuck's posts...

B.A.C.A.H. says

Whaddidu think SFace meant, anyway?

"S" is for save.

Save Face.

Now you know

87   zzyzzx   2014 Jan 15, 11:22pm  

Down to $6.65/sh on news of 2000 people layoff and 33 stores closing.

It's all Obama's fault!!!

88   Iwag   2014 Jan 16, 5:31am  

lol can we call this one of the worst investment calls of all time on pat net?

i remember when sface was arguing tooth and nail how the holiday shopping season would save penneys, then he deleted his post of course when goran called him out on that

89   Y   2014 Jan 16, 5:38am  

No, the worst call was all the bets made on zimmerman being found guilty...

Iwag says

lol can we call this one of the worst investment calls of all time on pat net?

i remember when sface was arguing tooth and nail how the holiday shopping season would save penneys, then he deleted his post of course when goran called him out on that

90   zzyzzx   2014 Jan 16, 9:44am  

As long as we are mentioning retailers, Best Buy stock took a dump as well. $26.83/sh Down 10.74(28.59%), with a 52wk Range of 13.83 - 44.66

91   FortWayne   2014 Jan 17, 4:54am  

Iwag says

lol can we call this one of the worst investment calls of all time on pat net?

i remember when sface was arguing tooth and nail how the holiday shopping season would save penneys, then he deleted his post of course when goran called him out on that

SFAce is notorious for giving real bad investment advice.

92   Eman   2014 Jan 24, 3:16pm  

FortWayne says

SFAce is notorious for giving real bad investment advice.

SFace gives a lot of sound advice on here. Like anything in life, there are some hiccups along the way. It proves that he's human and is subject to bad decision making sometimes.

You sir, time and time again, have been telling people on here not to buy houses at the bottom of the housing market. You have caused potential buyers millions of dollars combined with your unsound advice. Why haven't you apologized Patnet potential buyers for your unsound advice? Before you criticize other people, take a look at yourself in the mirror first.

93   SFace   2014 Jan 25, 1:42am  

FortWayne says

Iwag says

lol can we call this one of the worst investment calls of all time on pat net?

i remember when sface was arguing tooth and nail how the holiday shopping season would save penneys, then he deleted his post of course when goran called him out on that

SFAce is notorious for giving real bad investment advice.

Im not that stubborn, sold went Ackman went out and saw the disasterous home store and furniture. File it under stupid thing that will never be repeated.

Whether I am right or not, I only say things to the best as I understand them and try to help. Being negative, funny does not add value.

94   Iwag   2014 Jan 27, 11:55pm  

sface i think you are probably a swell guy but you probably should stop giving stock advice to people, its making you look like an asshole

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