Edward Lampert Biography

Edward S. "Eddie" Lampert (born July 19, 1962) is an American businessman and investor. He is the chairman and CEO of Sears Holdings (SHLD) and founder, chairman, and CEO of ESL Investments. Until May 2007 he was a director of AutoNation, Inc. He previously served as a director of AutoZone, Inc. from July 1999 to October 2006.

Early life and education

Lampert was born in 1962 to Dolores Lampert and Floyd M. Lampert. His mother was a housewife. His father was a senior partner in the law firm of Lampert & Lampert in New York City. He has a younger sister Tracey.

Lampert's grandmother was a passive investor and big fan of Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street Week television program. She instilled in him an interest in investing. His mother would later recall that young Eddie would sit with his grandmother reviewing and evaluating the performance of her stock picks in the daily newspaper.

Lampert's father died at the age of 47 leaving the family impoverished and forcing his mother to take a job as a clerk at Saks Fifth Avenue. His mother would later say: "Eddie really assumed the responsibility, knowing that life had changed and we had to accomplish something by ourselves now." In order to help support his family, Eddie worked after school and on weekends at various warehouses, stocking shelves and filling orders. Despite working, he earned good grades, played both soccer and basketball, and won the scholar athlete award at his high school. He received financial aid to help pay for college.

Lampert graduated from Yale University in 1984 (B.A., economics, summa cum laude), where he was a member of Skull and Bones and Phi Beta Kappa.

Career

In July 1984, Lampert worked as an intern at Goldman Sachs, and then worked in the firm's risk arbitrage department from March 1985 to February 1988. While there, he worked directly with Robert Rubin. When Lampert decided to go out on his own, Rubin warned him it would be a bad career decision.

In April 1988, Lampert left the bank to form ESL Investments, based in Greenwich, Connecticut (the name ESL derives from Lampert's initials). Richard Rainwater, whom Lampert had met on Nantucket Island, gave him $28 million in seed money and introduced him to clients, such as David Geffen.

Lampert's investment style can best be described as "strip and sell", often focusing on selling properties of retail companies and parting them off rather than investing money into them. Lampert typically holds his investments for several years and usually has between three and fifteen stocks in his portfolio. His investment was once drawing comparisons to the financier Warren Buffett. Lampert is considered responsible for forming and merging Kmart and Sears into Sears Holdings.

Lampert's earnings in 2004 were estimated to be $1.02 billion, making him the first Wall Street financial manager to exceed an income of $1 billion in a single year. In 2006, Lampert was the richest person in Connecticut with a net worth of $3.8 billion.

Lampert's earnings in 2006 were estimated to be from $1.0 billion to $1.5 billion.

In December 2007, columnist Herb Greenberg of Marketwatch named Lambert the worst CEO of that year.

In March 2012, Lampert came in at No. 367 on the Forbes world wealthiest people list with a net worth of $3.1 billion.

In a May 2012 Forbes magazine article, contributor Adam Hartung described Lampert as the second worst CEO/Chairman of a large publicly traded American company, saying he "has destroyed Sears" after taking over "once the most critical force in retailing" when "same-store-sales kept declining, and the stock fell out of bed dropping into the $30s in 2009 and again in 2012."

In January 2013, it was announced that Lampert would take over as chief executive officer at Sears after Louis D'Ambrosio stepped down due to family health matters, Which will take effect in May 2013.

Kidnapping

In 2003, Lampert was kidnapped from the parking lot of his Greenwich office, but was able to convince his captors to let him go after two days of captivity.

Personal life

In 2001, he married Kinga Lampert. They have three children. They have homes in California, Aspen, Colorado and Greenwich, Connecticut. They are active members of the Chabad Lubavitch of Greenwich.