Highlights from Sears Holdings (SHLD) 2009 Chairman Letter

Not that I follow Sears (SHLD) very closely, but here are a couple notable quotes from the Sears Holdings 2009 Chairman Letter.

While a number of our major competitors saw their EBITDA decline in the past year, we were pleased to report a meaningful improvement in Adjusted EBITDA from 2008 to 2009 and we aspire to repeat this improvement again in 2010.

Also:

I have written previously about what I believed was the reckless expansion of retail space leading to lower profitability for many retailers and to low or negative returns on the investment required to expand space. In other industries, consolidation rather than expansion has led to a more sensible competitive environment and better returns for shareholders. If you examine the level of capital expenditures over the past decade at many large retailers and compare that expenditure to value created, it would not paint a pretty picture. Additionally, the dramatic declines in capital expenditures over the past couple of years at most large retailers are strong evidence that the level of maintenance capital expenditures for a big box retailer is materially below what many analysts and experts previously believed. Most of the capital spent over the past decade has been largely for store expansion, with some lesser amount required for maintaining existing stores.