7 companies that may not see 2020
The recession has exposed a lot of companies' weaknesses, and in a slow-growth decade, the weak won't survive. Here's why some experts say Sears, Palm and a few more are in big trouble.
Potentially fatal flaws come in many forms. But three crop up the most when you talk to experts: excessive debt, superior competitors and the inability to keep up with technological change. Companies can muddle along with just one of these flaws. But with two or more, look out. A company is probably not a survivor unless it finds a way to flat-out reinvent itself.
Here are seven brand-name companies that may not make it to 2020.
1. Palm
With the Treo, Palm (PALM, news, msgs) was an early pioneer of the move to smart phones. So it doesn't seem right that stronger competitors such as Apple (AAPL, news, msgs) and Research In Motion (RIMM, news, msgs) are now going to crush it. But that could be Palm's fate.
Palm can still design popular phones, but it might be too small to survive. In a nutshell, here's what Palm is up against:
* Apple iPhones have a lock on coolness, and apps bring in extra revenue. There are more than 100,000 apps for iPhones, compared with about 400 for Palm phones.
* The business crowd favors BlackBerrys from Research In Motion because of its secure, dependable and easy e-mail system.
* Google (GOOG, news, msgs) is coming on strong with Android, a Trojan horse offered at low cost so that Google can spread its operating system.
Palm remains the midget in this crowd. In North America it has teamed up with Sprint Nextel (S, news, msgs), a tiny carrier compared with Verizon (VZ, news, msgs) and AT&T (T, news, msgs). This disadvantage is unlikely to go away.
"While we expect both Verizon and AT&T to carry Palm devices next year, we question how much marketing and subsidy support Palm will receive," Credit Suisse analyst Deepak Sitaraman says.
The company declined to comment on this column.
Palm has a market share of just 7%, compared with 40% for Research In Motion and 30% for Apple, according to ChangeWave Research. This means Palm may lack the financial strength, research budget and the marketing clout it needs to survive. "They don't have the scale to compete," says Scott Stevens of Strata Capital Management.
Of course, the Palm brand is certainly worth something. So rather than disappear, the company will more likely be purchased -- perhaps by Nokia (NOK, news, msgs) -- after the stock drifts much lower.
2. Sears
Sears remains one of the great mysteries in retail: It's not clear why it still exists. Yes, we know consumers love Craftsman tools, DieHard batteries and Kenmore appliances. But there's a fuddy-duddy aspect to its stores that makes it a wonder Sears has survived the current decade. Even to aging baby boomers, it's the place Grandma shopped.
Yes, Eddie Lampert, the chairman of the hedge fund that owns a controlling stake in the retailer, is a purported financial genius. But Sears and Kmart -- the other retailing dinosaur inside Sears Holdings (SHLD, news, msgs) -- haven't done much to impress investors or consumers since Lampert took charge in 2005.
Shoppers clearly favor up-to-date competitors such as Wal-Mart Stores (WMT, news, msgs), BJ's Wholesale Club (BJ, news, msgs), Costco Wholesale (COST, news, msgs) and Target (TGT, news, msgs).
"In the Sears near my house, you could play roller hockey," says Michael Shulman, a stock analyst with ChangeWave Research, who doesn't believe Sears is viable. Shulman is just joking, of course, but the fuddy-duddy factor of Sears and Kmart stores comes through loud and clear in the grinding sales declines. Besides poor merchandising, Morgan Stanley analyst Gregory Melich blames chronic underinvestment.
Sales at Sears Holdings have declined all year and fell 7.8% in 2008. Since the merger of Kmart and Sears in 2005, sales have declined an average of 3.5% annually, says Morningstar analyst Kimberly Picciola, who expects the trend to continue.
Sears responds that it has "world-class brands," significant cash flow and a strong balance sheet. "We believe we are well-positioned for the future," a spokesman says. The company also says Kmart sales are improving, in part because of the popularity of layaway sales.
Sears and Kmart are also sitting on some valuable real estate. But Lampert sucked a lot of cash out of the company to buy back shares. This propped up the stock but left Sears more financially vulnerable.
3. Blockbuster
Video rental icon Blockbuster is a great example of how technological change can crush winners that fail to keep up. First Blockbuster (BBI, news, msgs) got hammered as video rentals began moving to mail distribution pioneered by Netflix (NFLX, news, msgs). (That led me to write "Is Blockbuster doomed?" way back in 2003. The stock has fallen from around $20 a share that year to less than a buck recently.)
Now video distribution is shifting to the Internet, and Blockbuster is lagging again. "The amount of content you can download directly will make Blockbuster obsolete," predicts Strata Capital's Stevens.
Two big problems for Blockbuster: It's losing lots of money and has a big debt load -- nearly $1 billion in debt on top of a market capitalization of just $122 million. It's going up against more financially sound competitors in online distribution such as Netflix, Apple, Amazon.com (AMZN, news, msgs), Google, Hulu and cable companies that are expanding video-on-demand offerings.
Blockbuster responds that it has a competitive digital platform that complements its distribution via kiosks, mail and traditional stores, letting it meet the needs of customers no matter how they want to get their videos.
It seems to me, though, that technology has doomed Blockbuster as we know it. But at least we can all say goodbye to late fees, forever.
4. Eastman Kodak
The company that brought us Kodachrome spent most of its life as a near monopoly. Back in the good old days, it only had to face down Fujifilm.
Eastman Kodak (EK, news, msgs) has bravely tried to catch up to the shift to digital photography. It has rolled out great digital cameras, digital photo printers and even retail kiosks where consumers can print digital pictures.
But it's still having a tough time in its new, intensely competitive battlefields. Formidable opponents in cameras include Sony (SNE, news, msgs) and Canon (CAJ, news, msgs), and the printer wars are just as fierce. Meanwhile, smart-phone makers are upgrading the cameras in their units.
In 10 years, it seems we'll all be carrying one gadget that serves as camera, phone, music and video player, e-mail device and more. Will Kodak make those?
Sadly, the final Kodak moment may loom out there, somewhere, in the next decade.
Kodak responds that it has a leading position in most of its markets and is gaining share in new markets. The company recently raised more than $700 million, it says, and has $1.1 billion in cash. "By any reasonable assessment, Kodak is a financially sound company and a viable competitor," a company spokesman says.
5. Borders
Like Blockbuster, Borders (BGP, news, msgs) is getting hit by technological changes that leave it dazed and confused. First came the Internet, which brought the competitive pricing of Amazon. Lately, price competition has gotten even worse, with Wal-Mart slashing prices on best-sellers and Amazon matching the cuts.
Now Amazon's e-book reader, the Kindle, is gaining in popularity. With the Kindle, readers just download books, which are sold at lower prices. Next, readers will be using computers and computer notebooks to do the same. All of this eviscerates the need for a brick-and-mortar bookstore such as Borders, with the high costs associated with stores and inventory, Stevens says.
Borders has dealt with these challenges by aggressively cutting costs. But it's running out of room for that tactic, says Credit Suisse analyst Gary Balter.
Borders responds that bookstores will continue to coexist with digital book formats and online vendors because people who love books will continue to seek "community," or a place where "they can be surrounded by the books they love, meet others who share their passion for books and engage in the sheer joy and indulgence of spending hours exploring."
6. Magellan
Once a novelty, GPS -- the technology that plots your location via satellite -- is now ubiquitous. Besides dashboard GPS devices in cars, consumers can now get GPS access in smart phones and even cameras.
This is all part of a natural progression in technology in which software comes along to do the same thing you previously needed stand-alone devices for, Stevens says.
And it means that soon enough, consumers won't see any reason to buy GPS devices like those sold by Magellan, a private company but a well-known name, because software on their phone does the same thing.
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To get a sense of the extent to which GPS is now a commodity, just consider the intense price competition in the space. On Black Friday, vendors such as Magellan were offering generic GPS devices as low as $69 -- $21 below the cost of materials in the devices -- just to try to keep shelf space, Deutsche Bank analyst Jonathan Goldberg says.
You know a business appears doomed when companies have to sell below costs, even temporarily, just to stay in the game.
Magellan did not respond to a request for comment on this column.
7. McClatchy
Technology has been particularly hard on the news business, as content has moved online but advertising dollars have been slow to follow. For smaller, undiversified newspaper companies burdened with huge debt loads, time is running out. Despite the high quality of its papers, which include The Miami Herald and The Sacramento Bee, McClatchy (MNI, news, msgs) falls into this category.
The company did not respond to a request for comment on this column.
McClatchy would have stood a better chance had it not made the mistake of borrowing heavily to fund a $4.6 billion purchase of Knight Ridder in 2006. It also has heavy exposure to California and Florida, two states hit hard by the housing mess. Now, with ad revenue still in free fall, McClatchy runs the risk of missing payments on its massive debt.
Strictly speaking, this won't mean the final edition for McClatchy papers. In a bankruptcy scenario, they could be sold. But the final deadline for McClatchy, as a public company at least, would be up.