This is going to work...

ummm... probably not.

Let's see take two companies with lagging sales growth, mix in a little post bankruptcy drama (K-Mart), then add lost jobs in the short term and you get this merger. We all know mega-mergers work, just look at AOL-Time Warner. Is there any reason to think this won't be different? I think it might be worse. At least AOL and Time Warner were profitable companies and had pretty good business plans. Of course, after they merged their stock took a real dive and the companies net worth took a major hit. Here the best case scenario is that through merging there are long term cost savings, the ability to buy goods cheaper, the ability to tout some well known brands (i.e. Craftsman tools, Kenmore Appliances, and the Blue Light Special) and this will hopefully drive up profits. Unfortunately, K-Mart has been a floundering for years now and hasn't shown the ability to climb out of this funk with new lines (i.e. Martha Stewart)and new stores(instead they filed bankruptcy and closed a lot of stores). So toss in Sears which does have some valuable property but has the affinity to move away from malls (the effects of which are debatable) to stand alone stores. They have also attempted to encourage customer loyalty through the acquisition of well known brands (i.e. Lands End catalog) and through its well known house brands (i.e. Craftsman and Kenmore). Unfortunately, this has not really pulled in the customers. So instead of fixing problems separately, they figured why not just mix all of them together, fire a bunch of people, and see what happens. Unfortunately, it probably isn't going work as planned. I do wish them luck, any alternative to Wal-Mart is a plus in my book(a rant on them some other time).