[Link: businessweek.com]

He is pissed he didn't get in on the raping of the company. Fire workers so you can get performance bonuses for doing nothing! This is corporate America at it's finest!

[Link: bloomberg.com]

I don't know. You gotta sell a lot of TV's, etc to cover 1.7 billion in debt, let alone cover your day to day costs.

But they could have a nice blip in sales and profits if they run a buttload of ads that say they have identified their problems and are taking steps toward rectifying them. They're already laying people off and closing stores, so those costs have been eliminated and besides- $1.7B isn't really THAT much, right? Sure doesn't seem like a big number, with all of the talk about Trillions that's happening. Maybe he can get a bailout.

Want to know a secret? There is absolutely no reason that Best Buy can't survive this save for the fact that the same people are still running it. The world has changed but their board members and CEO have not.

The article states they do $50.7B annually. $1.23B represents 2.4%! That equivalent to a $2M company losing 48K. Doesn't seem like that much now does it and that's their first loss since 1991!

Anyone remember when Circuit City had their first loss? Has it gotten any better?

How many major retail chains went private before they went under? It's actually not a bad strategy. In the best case scenario, the business survives and maybe even goes public again. In the worst case, the business dies and is sold off in pieces.... Real estate, inventory, fixtures, brands names etc. Liquidations can be very profitable if they're done right.

ok, how much of that is actual NET profit? If they were really making that much $$$$ and unless the interest rate is 0, then they would be best off paying that debt off.
It is never better to have debt that you are paying interest on than to be debt free.
In fact no bonus's should be paid, until they are debt free.

Revenue is 50B and net loss is 1.23B with a total of 1.7B in long term debt. Not saying it's great but in context it's not that bad. The world is going towards an online marketplace and Best Buy needs to use whatever weight they have left to change the landscape of their company. Push for the internet sales tax, make a stand with Mfg's to ensure price protection on erroding margins, become a larger online presence like Amazon, or whatever else might help correct their sinking ship. It can be done, most people still want to go to a store to look and play with electronics IMO.

I think this is a cash grab.  If Shulze owns 20% of the stock and it bumps 10% in morning trading, he made plenty of money for simply putting out a press release.  

Fast forward a month, cash out, tell the public that your independent investigation showed that it wasn't worth purchasing.  Watch the stock price plummet.

Richard Shulze gets the last laugh.  Cashes out, laughs all the way to the bank, and watches the people who forced him out (because he was sleeping with a BB employee) grab life preservers.  

Remember Steve Jobs and how he manipulated the board after they forced him out?  

Maybe you might want to go back to cleaning your guns?

It was Brain Dunn that was busted for this. Unless I missed a press release?

My guns are clean thank you very much. :)

That's right.  He knew that the other guy was having an affair with an employee.  I knew it was something like that.

Are you saying that my theory is cockamamie or hair-brained? 

No I liked the first 2 paragraphs, but you lost me on the third and I don't think that the sex scandal had anything to do with the sinking of the ship. But your mileage may vary...

Regardless, the ship maybe sinking and the rats may very well be jumping first. I think that is what you were trying suggest.

It's about time for Julie to jump in and make some claim that Beast Buy melting down is not good for our industry and we should be very leery of the consequences, blah, blah, blah.

I say the consequences are already here, the genie has been out of the bottle for quite a while and that is the very reason that ship is sinking or at least adrift.

Somehow I think if Best Buy flames out, our industry, as f'ed up as it is, will somehow survive

For some reason, I'm sooo not worried.

I thought the other guy (Dunn) was his son in law, no? Married to Dick's daughter?

Glad to hear your guns are clean. I was getting concerned ;)