Kyle Bass Reveals Why He Bought J.C. Penney Stock

Kyle Bass, J.C. Penney stock: Kyle Bass is one of the most notorious personalities in the hedge fund universe. Especially when it comes to companies that are on everyone’s radar. Today, on CNBC, the manager of Hayman Advisors made several important points regarding J.C. Penney Company, Inc. (NYSE:JCP).

Here’s what Bass had to say about the company’s management:

“The prior CEO [Ron Johnson] destroyed more value in a such short amount of time that I’ve never seen in my life. He was clearly the wrong guy for the job. Bringing back Ullman, someone who knows retail very well…he has grown up in retail, he knows who the customer is, and our investment was predicated on the fact that…we thought J.C. Penney had an adequate liquidity to get through the holiday 2014.”

Earlier in September, Kyle Bass’ Hayman Advisors reported purchasing a 5.2% stake in JCP, which makes it one of the largest shareholders of the company:

“There were some reports out there suggesting that they are in some kind of imminent need of capital, but I think the PR was handled improperly from the company’s perspective, because they were having some troubles with some agitated board members stepping down, and they also had management team changing,”

“There is this belief that all of a sudden they are going to run out of liquidity, and if you look at the way they deal with their vendors, […] they are in perfect situation with J.C. Penney. I think it just has been a misinformation campaign from maybe those who are on the other side. But most important I think that men on this team will be able to stabilize.”

Also, Bass did not mention his plans regarding his stake in J.C. Penney, but said that he was disappointed with the 38% dilution that happened overnight, saying also that there was a severe miscommunication problem by management:

“So I’m not investing in a turnaround, I think that they might be able to stabilize the decline, their same store sales comps were so down year-over-year, due to the prior CEO’s mismanagement I think all they have to do is stabilize to see double-digit comp gains.”

See the full video below:

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