Sears Holdings (ticker SHLD) today announced that it has made an offer to buy Target (ticker TGT) for $55 per share, which represents a baffling 12% discount to Target’s current price.  Given that Sears goes through cash the way Charlie Sheen goes through call girls, it’s entirely unclear how Sears will finance this transaction.  With respect to the source of funds, Sears CEO Ed Lampert, whose early-career stock-picking prowess has now been completely eclipsed by his destruction of an American retail icon, said, “If I can sweet-talk a bunch of kidnapping thugs, then I’ll have Brian Cornell [Target CEO] begging to be a check-out girl.”  When asked about the curious discount on his offer price, Lampert blithely remarked, “Sears is the Goldman Sachs of the department store sector, and I’m sure that Target’s board will recognize that the chance to become associated with Sears/K-Mart justifies a small discount to the purchase price.”  Lampert explicitly stated that he will change all Target stores to the K-Mart nameplate.  Lampert worked at Goldman earlier in his career. Continue reading →