Today, I participated in TMA's webinar on the state of the retail industry.
Peter Schaeffer, from Carl Marks Advisory Group, assembled a quality panel consisting of:
Jeff Bloomberg from Gordon Brothers
Burt Feinberg from CIT Retail Finance
Jay Indyke from Cooley Goward and Kronish
Jeff Perlman from LNK Partners
It would have been great to have an operating retail executive or two, although clearly this is almost impossible given what retailers are facing in their own company. Not exactly a time to be out speaking, and a tough time to be gratuitously candid, especially if an officer of a public retail company.
Given the state of the retail industry, the state of the economy, and the tremendous general uncertainties of these times, I thought the panel did a very credible job. Add in the fact that panel presentations always have the issue of what exactly is the audience (experts or relative novices) and I, for one, appreciate what these five Restructuring professionals served up today.
Sometimes the real utility of a program like today's is not what, per se, the speakers convey but ones own take when given the opportunity to focus on the subject matter and mentally challenge that which is being said.
In my next post, I will report on my specific takeaways from the presentation. In the meantime, I can definitively say that although each of these pros believe better days will come for retail, every one of them is very clear that they are as clueless as all of us as to when that will happen. In fact, my take of their position as to the Webinar subject question is that
Buckle in...it is going to be a long and very bumpy ride!all five believe there will eventually be light at the end of the tunnel, but not one of the panelists reported seeing the light yet.
Up Next: In my next blog post, I will summarize my specific takeaways from this webinar.
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