It is a Red Light earnings special for Sears and Eddie Lampert

We like Eddie Lampert, we really do. He is a self-made billionaire who did it the hard way, not the easy way.

But, let's face it, he is an investor, not a CEO type.

Yesterday, we opened to the second section of the Financial Times and saw the headline: Sears suffers dismal quarter of poor sales. It was more of the same for Eddie.

What is more of the same, you ask? More poor branding strategy, more management defections, more financial problems, more of everything going wrong.

Sears announced a further share repurchase program. However, Think Billion$ has a better idea: Take the damn company PRIVATE! This is the only sensible thing to do from a financial re-engineering standpoint. Let us break it down for one and all -

Step 1: more share repurchases for the rest of 2008. Step 2: take Sears private next year. Step 3: re-engineer the damn thing. Step 4: years later, take it public to an unsuspecting public and to Wall Street accolades.

Come on Eddie, you know what to do.


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Barry, Barry, Barry

No we don't mean the lovable Barry Bonds.

We mean the lovable billionaire (#317 on the Forbes The 400 Richest Americans list resting at $1.5b), Barry Diller.

This UCLA drop-out, born in Beverly Hills, and married to Diane von Furstenberg has recently come out victorious from a well-publicized lawsuit with former business buddy John Malone.

And it is all described, and more, in the June Conde Nast Portfolio article: The Confessions of Barry Diller.

Read it so that you too can understand all-things-Barry.

Billionaires bullish on Yahoo!

First Microsoft, then Carl Icahn and now T. Boone Pickens. Who's next?

T. Boone Pickens Picks Up 10 Million Yahoo Shares, Betting On Carl Icahn


YHOO


update -

Icahn Gets Green Light For Yahoo Stock Purchase

Jerry Yang, Yahoo billionaire, tells both Microsoft and his own shareholders to "get lost!!!"

Jerry Yang, of Los Altos, CA is 38 years old, worth $1.9 billion (according to Forbes) and is the 261st richest person in the United States of America.

This weekend he has told both Microsoft and his own shareholders to "get lost!!!"

As the whole world now knows, Microsoft has abandoned the Yahoo bid after sides can't agree on acceptable sales price

SEATTLE (AP) -- Microsoft says it's dropping its three-month-old bid to buy Yahoo because the two sides can't agree on an acceptable sale price.
Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer says in a letter sent to Yahoo on Saturday that the software maker was willing to pay $47.5 billion for Yahoo. That's $33 per share.

Ballmer says Yahoo insisted that Microsoft pay at least $53 billion. That's $37 per share.

We, think this is absolutely insane. Jerry Yang is taking an anti-capitalistic, anti-shareholder approach to this proposed buyout. He clearly believes in a eastern Asian philosophy that corporations are made for its employees, not the shareholders. This is very anti-Think Billion$ as well, since Jerry clearly believes that he should be the billionaire and not anybody else. Good luck Jerr. Good luck in managing investor lawsuits in the upcoming months.


Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang on hot seat after rebuffing Microsoft's $47.5 ...
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE , AP SAN FRANCISCO - Yahoo Inc. Chief Executive Jerry Yang has gotten what he wanted: