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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: David who wrote (8045)	8/25/1999 10:57:00 AM
From: James Clarke	Respond to of 78817

If you're looking for a catalyst for LKI, let me suggest several. 1) A recovery in Japan; 2) Rising DeBeers sales (look at the stock of Debeers and Tiffany); 3)The new GE joint venture beginning to produce revenues; 4) The possibility of a spike in high-end diamond sales for the millenium. JJC

To: David who wrote (8045)	8/26/1999 1:37:00 AM
From: David C. Burns	Respond to of 78817

Dull translates to consistency and this company certainly has a long history, although their new approach and perhaps new competition has caused problems. To expand on the earlier historical story of Elder-Beerman, I would add this: the forerunner that dates back to the 1800's is Elder-Johnson, long knosn as Elder's. It was the original competition to Rike's for most of the 100 or so years of both their histories. Elder's was eventually being run by the family by an excessively dull witted descendant of the founder and the company went bankrupt or threatened too (after a decade or more of failing to keep up with Rike's after it affiliated with Federated Dept. Stores, aka Lazarus.) Arthur Beerman, a Dayton real estate wheeler dealer, who had a line of extremely cheap fourth rate discount stores, came in and bought out the Elder family for pennies on the dollar and appropriated the name to his. After that, they did upgrade their stores significantly and expand around the metro area (Elder's had kept a single downtown store all through the exodus to the suburbs, while Rike's had moved to the suburbs and kept the flagship store downtown. If Rikes/Shillitos/Lazarus/Federated made an error, it was to try to do both - just in the last few years (less than 10) they finally closed the downtown store. I haven't lived in the area for 30 years, but I would say that Elder-Beerman still has second rate locations compared to Rike's/Lazarus. They also operate a line of discount furniture and discount shoe stores under the name El-Bee, unless they gave that up or spun it off. I don't know how much geographic diversification Elder-Beerman has achieved, certainly not anything like Federated. None of this is intended to express any opinion about it's current value, just wanted to add some company history and context, raise some questions.

To: David who wrote (8045)	8/26/1999 9:25:00 AM
From: Mike 2.0	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 78817

All, this might be flame bait, I hope not, but what catalyst would Elder-Beerman possibly have to justify investing in this apparently sleepy old-style dept store chain? Does the company manage its inventory particularly well? Do they have some unique niche? It appears they are doing nothing different in the face of a host of new competitors and new retail environment. I never heard of them but it sounds like another chain I remember called Rich's...another old style department store, very clean, but also very ordinary. The chain is long gone. One possibility might be if there is still significant family ownership, perhaps they may try to take the chain private. Otherwise, I think this great "value" will remain a great "value" for a long time indeed. JMO.