Bill Ackman: JCPenny Turnaround Will Take Several Years [VIDEO]

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Bill Ackman: JCPenny Turnaround Will Take Several Years [VIDEO]

Pershing Square Capital CEO, Bill Ackman explains the long case for JC Penny. The company got two downgrades yesterday, and last week reported what most considered to be poor earnings.

H/T Value Investing World

Video and computer generated transcript below:

en they walk to the store on the other side of the mall and get to four shops. here we have 100 shops in a tigh geographic area, your husband has a little ipad that he can be playing with, your kids can be playing with legos in something he calls the street this little area here, look at our little street, something called the square which is going to have food and seasonal prizes. fun place to shop. you can go into 15, 20, 30 shops in this consolidated apple like checkout, iphone, anyone can check you out, it’s efficient, nice environment. it’s the apple store customer interface combined with the best brands of the world in a small geography. we had $250 a square foot in sales with the traffic down 12%. for your sake and for ron johnson’s sake i hope this works and i love a great come back story. i want to leave our viewers with one thing. the biggest problem people have with something like this, how can i own a stock when the sales are down 26%? i’ll make one analogy and help people think about how to value this company. we took a stake in wendy’s, why did people not like wendy’s? i get a chance we come back after a commercial, i’m happy to stay. i think we’re going. give me one minute and i’m happy to come back another time. wendy’s, people hated the management, there was a fast growing company called tim horton’s inside wendys. we separated and the stock doubled. we have this fast growing retail inside jcpenney, profitable and high margins and the rest of jcpenney is shrinking. it’s hard to look at it on a consolidated piece. you have to value@the pieces separately. if you do that you’ll buy the stock at $18 per share. thank you for coming and the conversation. where are your pins? look for your pins at jcpenney beginning black friday. i wouldn’t be short the stock. you’re not. thank you very much. bill, thank you. let’s look at the futures quickly, we have been under a little pressure. you’ll see right now that the futures are down by 38 points. we’ll welcome steven roach when we come back after this break. to future. since ameriprise financial was founded back in 1894, they’ve been committed to putting clients first. helping generations through tough times. good times. never taking a bailout. there when you need them. helping millions of americans over the centuries. the strength ofa global financial leader. the heart ofa one-to-one relationship. together for your future. great… were you profitable last month? how much money is in your checking account? have the browns paid you for their addition yet? your finances are scattered all over the place. what are your monthly expenses? you keep your receipts in plastic baggies? seriously? get it done and get it off your mind… with quickbooks. organize your small business finances… all in one place. quickbooks pulls in information from other sources. even online bankingand customer information. visit try quickbooksfree.com today to start for free. and now your business can beat your fingertips, anywhere, with the convenient mobile app. from creating customized invoices, to tracking sales and expenses, quickbooks canhelp you manage… every detailof your business. and at tax time,all your records… will be automatically organizedand ready to go, saving you time on prep work. quickbooks, guaranteed easyor your money back. learn more and start for free… at tryquickbooksfree.com. joining us is our guest host for the next two hours, steven roach, senior fellow at yale university and former executive of morgan stanley asia. did you do your homework? i did. this big piece in the wall street journal on the economy in china. needs work. you are a china expert and they go over things and it’s in the wall street journal if you have an interest they are adding to the workforce which is a b deal, more and more people come into the workforce in china. the number of people in china is declining. they’ve hit the top and they’re headed down the other way. joe, there are a lot of challenges in china, there are a lot of challenges in the united states and a lot of challenges in europe. the difference is china does something we need to think about in the united states, they do strategy and they have a commitment to the strategy and they have the tools to implement that commitment. they have a five-year plan, adam smith has never planned anything in his life or afterwards. they went from people living in broken down tenements in urban centers to satisfying the demand that was there to now half empty buildings and totally overbuilt situation. doesn’t that set you up for a couple of years of not growing at 10%? i think 10% is probably too high. they’ve done it for 30 years and now they move to more like a 7% to 8% growth trajectory but 15 million to 20 million people per year are moving from the countryside to the city. it’s a field of dreams approach. when you build it, they will eventually come. this idea there are ghost cities all over china misses the future rural urban migration which is a very powerful story, ongoing in china. it’s on the upswing. in your view we’ve seen — we’ve seen the low in terms of the gdp, the production, the trade figures, we’re not rebounding vigorously but china will be moving up what into 2013. i think i have a minute or two left. the u.s. consumer we have been anecdotally thinking that we’ve turned the corner there and this has been your thing for years and years and there’s more anecdotal evidence now that we’ve turned the corner. watch out with the anecdotes. what about consumer confidence and housing? i get all of that. you were talking about zombies in an earlier segment. we have a generation of zombie consumers, overly indebted, short of saving, they have to repair the holes in the balance sheet being overly lefrd on underwater collateral. we’re a third of the way through it. the personal savgs rates are up but well below norms that were sustainable for the final three decades of the 20th century. so it’s going to be a long slog and the numbers, i’ve said them on this show a zillion times, 19 quarters from q1 ’08 through q3 ’12, average annual growth in consumerpending 0.7%, versus a prior ten-year average of 3.6. 0.7%. 0.7, becky. versus? 3.6. quite a slowdown for 70% of the economy. you’re suggesting we don’t rebound from that, we don’t come back? you’ll have mohammed on later, he’s the father of the new normal if you want to call him that, and we’ll probably do better than 0.7 but not getting back to 3.6 for a long time. i guess if we hit the cliff it will be worse. well, yeah, i — you not a cliff guy. i’ve got my cliff notes right here. i’m not a cliff guy. coming up the ceo of xerox, ursula burns is meeting with the president tomorrow. today she’ll speak to investors but before she does either of those she will speak to squawk, is she is the the new york stock exchange, do we have any pins down there? i think we have rise above pins she can wear one to see the president. there you go. that’s a great idea. time now for today’s aflac trivia question. which suburb of new jersey is home to both ferrari and maserati north america? the answer, when cnbc squawk box continues. aflac! ha! isn’t major medical enough? huh! no! who’s gonna help cover the holes in their plans? aflac! quack! like medical bills they don’t pay for? aflac! or help pay the mortgage? quack! or child care? quack! aflaaac! and everyday expenses? huh?! blurlbrlblrlbr!!! aflac! help your family stay afloat at aflac.com. plegh! gifts easier. well, having a ton of locations doesn’t hurt. and my daughter loves the santa. oh, ah sir. that is a customer. let’s not tell mom. break from the holiday stress. fedex office. ?? life’s been good to me so far ?? now the answer to today’s aflac trivia question, which suburb of new jersey is them to both ferrari and maserati north america? the answer, englewood cliffs. aflac. that’s actually it. right down the street from us. when we come back the ceo for xerox with the business update on her view of the global economy, also we’ll talk to her about the fiscal cliff issue, see what shes needs to happen. watching the futures down about 38 points for the dow this morning, s&p futures off by close to 5 points. look at crude prices at this hour, you’ll see they are down just about 16 cents. we were down by more than 80 cents earlier, 85.41 is where wti stands now. squawk will be back after this. you’re watching squawk box on cnbc, rise above and profit from it. ] scottrade, you won’t just find us online, you’ll also find us in person, with dedicated support teams at over 500 branches nationwide. so when you call or visit, you can ask for a name you know. because personal service starts with a real person. at scottrade, seven dollar tradesare just the start. our support teamsare nearby, ready to help.

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