Sharper Image Succumbs to Filing Chapter 11; Can Board Lead a Turnaround?

(NewsVisual, powered by IntellectSpace )-- Three years of falling earnings have led Sharper Image Corp (NASDAQ: SHRP) to file for Chapter 11 protection. The specialty retailer is also expected to shut down approximately half of its 184 US stores.

With debts nearing $200 million at the end of January, the San Francisco-based seller of high-tech gadgets and products has proven to be the latest victim of the ongoing credit crisis. Sharper Image pointed to a number of reasons for its underperformance and bankruptcy filing, including heightened competition, shrinking gross margins, credit woes and fallout from legal proceedings surroundings its air purifiers.

Now that Sharper Image reached the point of petitioning bankruptcy, its management team and board faces the daunting task of rebuilding the business. The company is already moving quickly to shut down its failing stores, though serious strategy and plans of action need to be formed if Sharper Image is expected to not only survive, but thrive in its upcoming quarters.

NewsVisual created an IntellectSpace Knowledge Map that illustrates the key past and current corporate connections of Sharper Images’ Board of Directors. Industry experience and ties to friends in high places may be critical for the company as it attempts a successful turnaround.

As displayed in this Knowledge Map, many of the Directors at Sharper Image have held notable senior executive-level and board positions with a number of major corporations. Marc J Leder is the one of the Founders and CEOs of Sun Capital Partners and Michael S Koeneke was previously a division Co-Chairman at Merrill Lynch.

Other Sharper Image Directors with impressive resumes include Jerry W Levin, a Director at Ecolab, Wendy’s and US Bancorp; William R Fields, Chairman of Intersouce and Director of Lexmart; and Howard M Liebman, who has held Senior Executive positions at Hobart West Group, Shorewood Packaging and also spent two decades at Deloitte & Touche beginning in 1974.

Readers, how do you think Sharper Image will revive itself from this latest event?

Click here or copy this link into your Internet Explorer browser for an interactive version of this IntellectSpace Knowledge Map: http://nv.intellectspace.com/ispace/GuestMonitor.aspx?id=5d2838b8-3b5e-46c3-bb27-5dfa51bbf9b8

See article by Carol McCleary in The Wall Street Journal (subscription required)