Bloomberg's Coleman-Lochner on Sears, Gordon on Clinton (Audio)

here right now. The SMP five hundred index climbing half a point, little changed at two thousand ninety one. Down Industrials down twenty points, a drop of point one percent. The down now at seventeen thousand, eight hundred thirty one. Nastak up eight points to forty nine O three, a gain of two tenths of one percent. Gold down three ten the ounce to twelve twenty seventy a drop of

three tenths of one percent. Crude Oil West Texas Intermediate forty barrel, a drop there of three tenths of one percent. I'm Charlie Peblett, and that's a Bloomberg Business flash. This is taking stock with Pim Box and Kathleen Hays on Bloomberg Radio. Sears Holdings. What is left of Sears Holdings after the CFO departs and Eddie Lampert, who controls Sears Holdings, decides to perhaps put the brands of Ken Moore, die Hard and Craftsman on the auction block. Let's find out

more From Lauren Coleman Lochner, retail reporter for Bloomberg News. Lauren, thanks very much for coming in. Much appreciate it. All right, so give us the news. Tell us what's going on. Sure, So, Sears for the last few years has been selling or spinning off assets. Um as it's been burning through quite a bit of cash. It's was more than two billion in cash burn last year. So they're just not funding the operations. Um they need to go to outside sources

of money. The stores sales declining sales, UH, same store sales, which is a measure that we look at since it met, you know, it's like it's apples to apples. They've been declining. I think it's been every quarter but one since the company's merged. So operationally, they've had a lot of problems and they've tried a lot of things, but nothing that they've tried is really managed to turn the business around. So what is the problem here? I love the way

you start your story today. You say, you know Sears chief executive officer Eddie Lampert is in a bad spot when he's considering selling off three of the retailer's crown jewels, Ken More Craftsman, and I heard, look, he's like cutting off the arms, arms and legs pretty soon. You know, what do you have left to stand on? Right? Because

you have the licensing stream of revenue from those brands. Now, um, they did look a couple of years ago at exploring outside companies licensing the brands as well, but then you're giving people less of a reason to come into your own store. Worse, Sears is still the major appliance seller and Ken Moore is a big draw for customers. If you don't have that, it's you know, you could sell it in license at bat too. But if you don't have that, what do you have to bring people in there?

Not coming in for clothing. That's not an area that they've been able to fix. They've been struggling on most fronts, most categories ever since the company has merged, and even before Sears and Kmart were merged, Lauren I was looking at the details of things like ken More products and so on. They're made by Whirlpool, ge Panissan. They don't make any of this, They just put their brand on it.

Now they may have some unique features tea so UM, it's all contained in this special purpose vehicle, this k C D I P Intellectual Property LLC. Who do you think's gonna buy it? I mean, who would be interested? Husky Apex Tool Group makes some of the tools, so right, you might. You know. What's been suggested to me is that you might have manufacturers UM looking at some of these brands. UM. In terms of the tools, at least batteries is tough. It's really almost a commod commodity these days.

UM as far as the appliances go. One thought has been that you could have a retailer like home Depot, which now has its own brands, but this would be a draw and it's a successful retailer, and that this could really revitalize the brands. Now, we don't know whether they're going to sell these, and Sears has put a lot of stuff on the block where you know it hasn't completed the transaction, or it's you know, done something different like spinning off the entity instead. So it's possible

that nothing will happen as well. But Eddie Lamport will stay in his seat running the company and just keep selling things off until there's nothing left to sell. Is that? Oh? They you know, they're they're really emptying the shelves here. Um, there isn't a lot left. There are a lot of stores still left. They only put about two fifty into the into the red that they spun off last year,

but those were two fifty of their best stores. They have some other stores pledged um already, so the value of the remaining real estate is probably not as strong as what's already been spun or pledged elsewhere. Well, um, we'll see what happens next. I'm sure you'll be back soon.

Though it seems like this is the story. Is that the plot is thickening, So it seems Lauren Colemanlauter, thank you so very much for joining US retail reporter for Bloomberg News, reporting on Stears plans to considering options for Ken Moore, Craftsman, and die Hard, some of its most iconic brands, to politics. We go taking a look at some of the comments that the President Obama made at the G seven meeting in Japan about Hillary Clinton's emails,

also about Donald Trump. Craig Gordon joins us now managing editor for Bloomberg Editorial in Washington. Craig, Welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me so, uh, you know, it's interesting. I think people were waiting to hear the president asked at that press conference today some questions about G seven ministers and economies, but a lot of political questions. What did you make about his comments on Hillary Clinton's emails. I mean, look, this has been an uncomfortable topic for

the Obama administration. I think they know what that report says that she obviously did not really follow the rules and actually took some steps that we now know from this report where she cut some corners for the sake of privacy, for the sake of her emails not being

archived for all eternity and different things. This is not something that President Barack Obama really wants to stand up there and have to defend and have to, you know, sort of answer for, because it really he has said in prior things that he did not he would not have done it this way he had wished, you know, says she could have done it differently. So it puts Obama in a very tough spot. Obviously, he's a loyal Democrat. He would like Hillary Clinton succeed him versus Donald Trump.

So he has to walk a very fine line. But I don't think the White House is enjoying having to defend email practices by Hillary Clinton that they actually don't agree with themselves. Craig, can you comment on Bernie Sanders and what he's trying to do with the convention committee and the various platforms that the Democratic Party will have

to adopt. Yeah. Sure, I mean, look at every national political convention, each party adopts a party platform that is supposed to be sort of the guiding principles, the bedrock principles of that political party. Um, Bernie Sanders, you know, I think even Bernie Sanders is that he's a little surprised. And when he started running for president, he really was just trying to influence the conversation. He was trying to pull the party towards the left, toward the liberal side

of the spectrum. Um in the eventual nominee, of course, he ended up coming much closer to winning than even he might have expected. But at the end of the day, this always was about getting more progressive policies into the party conversation and eventually into the party platform. Things like a fifteen dollar minimum wage nationally, things like you know, fully paid college, things like fully paid healthcare. And so right now, look, you know, Hilly Clinton is within a

hundred delegates of being the nominee. The Democratic Party officially shall clear that bar easily in California and June seventh, um, So Bernie Sanders at this point, you know, he can say he's still in the race a little bitter end, but he But can he influence the platform perhaps in foreign policy? Uh, that's a little trickier. I think he I think he is mostly interested in the domestic policies.

I think he's mostly interested in trying to get the Democratic Party to be the Democratic Party, perhaps the FDR, you know, sort of that that old that thing where the government is truly providing for people a living wage, healthcare, education, all of those things. He has talked less about foreign

policy doing the campaign, just by nature of it. But he so his money focuses on domestic and I think you will see a Democratic Party platform that sounds a lot like Bernie Sanders party platform because frankly, it doesn't really cost Hilly Clint anything to have it in the platform, and nobody, we blunt, nobody really reads the platform. After the conventions over, Bernie can declare, when Clinton can declare, she kept Bernie happy and hopefully Bernie supporters come onto

her side. That would be the ultimate endgame failure Clinton. Some interesting comments from President Obama when it comes to Donald Trump, and of course Trump saying today he'd be delighted to debate Bernie Sanders. Uh. Donald President Obama saying that world leaders are rattled by the prospect of a Trump presidency, and Donald Trump shoots back that it's good

to be uh rattled in a friendly way. Were you surprised to hear the president speaking this way of Trump, although you know he is sitting down with leaders from all over the world. Yeah. And it's interesting because a lot of our Bloomberg reporters and editors, we we sort of get these reports back in Washington that they'll go interview off in the CEO or the kind of folks that Bloomberg obviously would interview and they all are a

bit of gas that was happening in America. They're sort of puzzled and looked to our reporters to try to explain it, and and even some of us in Washington are still trying to explain to ourselves. So I'm not surprised that that sentiment is out there, and nor am I surprised that Barack Obama's talking about it. Um. I actually think that he is. Um. He is sort of frustrated that what he thinks has been some bridges bridge building that he's done in his eight years in office.

You know that it seems like Donald Trump is plating stick of dynamite under those bridges, and I think he's frustrated about that, And I think as he gets closer to the end of his term, he will feel, you know, freer and freer almost at every passing day to say that about Donald Trump. He's made comments like this before. This is obviously a very high profile international setting, so it's a little bit unusual maybe to hear the president

talk about domestic politics and a foreign trip. But no, I think he's made it very clear that he is troubled by Trump. He is worried that he will diminish US influence in the world and actually damage, you know, damage our prospects abroad. That that's Barack Obama's opinion. He's he's certainly entitled to it, and he feels more free every day to share it with us. Craig Gordon, thank you very much for sharing all this information with us.

Managing editor, Bloomberg News, Washington d C. Bureau. You're listening to Taking Stock on pim Fox, my co host Kathleen Hayes, Craig Gordon speaking about Trump crossing the delicate threshold and Clinton emails and the fallout from that Inspector General report. This is Bloomberg Radio.