绝望的时期需要对JOS的绝望措施。A.银行

In one of my better articles last year, I had the audacity to compare men’s retailer Jos. A. Bank to the all-mighty Federal Reserve. I argued that Jos. A. Bank is addicted to what was supposed to be a temporary advertising campaign — buy one suit, get (insert always-increasing number here) suits free. The Fed, on the other hand, is hooked on quantitative easing.

I’ll let you read theoriginal article. And to the Fed, I am sorry this article is not about you (but don’t despair, there is one about you in the works).

去年6月，JOS。A.银行报告了绝对悲惨的数字 - 毫不奇怪 - 并且在10月份宣布有意购买其最大的直接竞争者男士佩戴房间，这在收入方面的两倍多。这是事情真的有趣的时候。

Jos. A. Bank is past the point of salvation; its advertising has ruined its brand. Today that brand stands not for the quality of its clothes but only for their quantity. In fact, the first thing that comes to mind when you see someone wearing a Jos. A. Bank suit is that he has three more just like it in the closet.

公司被困。它必须尽一张促销活动，让男人回到商店。最新的促销是购买一个，免费获得三个。

解释什么Jim Chanos在我的价值X Vail会议上说了中国last year, Jos. A. Bank is on a treadmill to hell. You don’t have to look far to see what happens when an American retailer tries to be honest with its customers, drops couponing, and switches to everyday low prices. Yes, I am talking aboutJ.C. Penney Co.：它的销售简单地崩溃了，它的首席执行官被解雇了，现在它位于企业Zombieland，在深度昏迷之间的某个地方和寻找新资本之间。

Jos. A. Bank has a better balance sheet than J.C. Penney and is still profitable, but at some level its problems are worse. J.C. Penney sells its private brands but many other brands as well. Jos. A. Bank doesn’t. J.C. Penney can maintain its image as a promotional retailer because no one has to know that you bought your Levi’s there. Jos. A. Bank sells Jos. A. Bank–branded clothes.

Jos. A. Bank management is smart, they understand their problem, and to their credit they admitted the fallacy of their strategy on their conference call last summer. If Jos. A. Bank were to do nothing or continue what it was doing, first it would keep ratcheting up the promotions — maybe even start handing out Apple products with purchases of their pants — and its sales would maybe even grow initially, but margins would decline further. Though this strategy would buy a few months of sales, even that would grow old, sales would inevitably decline, and Jos. A. Bank would look not much different from J.C. Penney today. In a desperate — and perhaps its only remaining — move, it threw a Hail Mary with its attempt to purchase Men’s Wearhouse.

男士佩戴房屋有什么JOS。A.银行没有 - 一个可敬的品牌。创始人乔治齐默的商业广告仍然在我们的脑海中生动地印记：“你会喜欢你的样子。我保证。“转化为质量！JOS。A.银行的行为对我有意义，但男子佩戴房屋对其竞争对手的举动的回应是难题。而不是挥舞着JOS的木制股份。A.银行仿佛试图吸血的吸血鬼，男士佩戴房子说，“不，我的小朋友，一半的规模，你不买我们;我们正在买你。“

Other than cost cutting, there is no logical reason for Men’s Wearhouse to want this merger. They’d have to kill the Jos. A. Bank brand, which is damaged goods, rebrand all Jos. A. Bank stores, and then discover that they have two Men’s Wearhouse stores on one block. I encourage you, my reader, to go on Google Maps and look for Men’s Wearhouse and Jos. A. Bank stores. They are usually within blocks of each other. There is, of course, some value in taking out a competitor, shutting down its stores and enjoying the inflow of traffic to your own stores. But that is a very expensive way of doing things, and it may benefit your other competitors as much as you.

正如我写作的那样，我刚刚收到了两份具有JOS的电子邮件。A.银行主题行，一个来自JOS的。A.银行向我通知我最新的令人难以置信的促销：“周五和周六 - 套装，裤子和飞行衣裤休息66％！！所有清关都有25％，免运费。“这一个缺乏一点oomph - 没有平板电脑或电话赠品，没有什么可以让我做任何不同的事情（或没有做的）几天前出售。

第二个是更有趣的，从MarketWatch的警报：“JOS。A.银行购买Eddie Bauer以5.64亿美元的现金和470万股“ - 将总价格标签放在8亿美元左右，一半以上的JOS。A.银行的市场上限。CNBC的David Faber报道了JOS。A.银行正在支付18次EBITDA - 这是一个非常丰富的多个。为了使事情更有趣，JOS。A.银行将以56美元的价格发行股票来融资这笔交易，同时它有一个提供3％的股份从现有股东购买3％。但是一个绝望的未来呼吁令人沮丧的措施。

However, this is maybe one of those rare second chances, and it’s one that Jos. A. Bank urgently needs. The company is not in a fight to grow, it is in a fight to survive. If it were to do nothing, its stock would soon be worth a fraction of today’s price, if anything at all. Now Jos. A. Bank can bring the Eddie Bauer brand into its stores — make it exclusive to its stores. The key here is that it has to have a different pricing and promotional strategy for Eddie Bauer–branded products. No more buy one, get some number free.

This development doesn’t make me want to go out and buy Jos A. Bank shares, especially not at 18 times earnings. But when I sat down to write this article, I thought the company was worth around the liquidation value of its inventory plus cash less its lease liabilities — just a few dollars a share, that is. Now I’m thinking Jos. A. Bank could be worth as much as half its current $55 a share, no great bargain but an upgrade from its dollar-store price tag before it agreed to buy Eddie Bauer.