Ousted Founder of Men’s Wearhouse Watches His Old Company Struggle | Hacker News Reader

Ousted Founder of Men’s Wearhouse Watches His Old Company Struggle

nytimes.com

132 pointspavornyoh106 comments

> It’s curious we’ve allowed capitalism to become all about shareholders.

For god's sake I hope this view becomes more prevalent.

Viewing economy only through shareholder's eyes leads to a focus on only short-term gains - which might destroy the company in the future but who cares when stock goes up 10% in a quarter?

Fuck this shit. The economy would fare a LOT better in my eyes if any investor over a certain threshold (10k?) was forced to hold the stock in question for 12 months at a minimum, similar to the waiting periods startup founders/co-owners have to endure before they're allowed to sell their stock.

Such a move would instantly kill off those greedy funds which make a company go deep into debt, pay the money from these debts to the shareholders (i.e. the fund(s)) and then go bankrupt.

edit: also, such a move would prevent people from investing in crapps like Yo, which got at least $2.5M in funding...

I'm not sure if my view on this is complacency, fatalism, or somewhat valid, but I disagree. (I agree that it's broken, I don't think there's a good fix)

A) we already have such an incentive in the form of long/short term ownership and tax benefits. It hasn't helped (in the sense that this behavior still exists)

B) There's always a loophole. You're required to stay in 1 year? Your shares get converted to those of the company that survives. Or they structure the deal such that a holding company is created on day 1, the profits pass through, and the debt issues don't come through until day (requirement +1).

Every control on financial deals comes a day late and dollar short - we can't penalize the crooked deals after the fact, and we can't predict what the financial industry will concoct until they do.

Further, every law passed will be worked around anyhow because you can always structure a deal to create a loophole. The laws only force ever more creative products (read: complex and fragile).

The only simple solution I see is to only allow a subset of deals, with contracts, terms, and arbitration set by the government. And that will never happen (nor be effective really, for the above).

The reason people view the economy through the shareholders' eyes is because very many of them are shareholders and count on the stock market to pay for their retirement. It's also the opposite of looking only for short-term gains.

Who, these days, is directly investing in stocks for their retirement? That's absolutely crazy imho.

Just choose an index fund if you're in long term (http://www.forbes.com/sites/mitchelltuchman/2013/07/18/hedge...). Fuck hedge funds.

You mean mutual funds. Hedge funds aren't open to the general public.

The why do many of the big stock picking equity income Investment trusts beat the FTSE 100 and over several decades.

I do, as part of a diversified portfolio. I couldn't find an ETF with reasonable fees that provides the make-up I wanted: long-term history of dividend growth ex-cigarettes/pharma. This dividend stream will provide a meaningful percentage of the income in retirement. It is presently being reinvested for compound growth.

With some notable exceptions, in general, shareholders are not patient people. Their horizon is usually the next quarter's results. After all why keep your shares in a company that is not making a "good enough" return, when you can easily them to the next company that is due to make outstanding returns.

I worked in the investment banking industry for many years, on both the buy and sell side and believe me - "long term" is not in most shareholder's vocabulary.

Of course shareholders seek to maximize returns. There's nothing wrong with that.

BTW, shareholders who churn their accounts tend to do poorly. That doesn't hurt other shareholders, though. But it does mean you don't need to heap further punishment on them.

If you work in the industry where you're talking to people who buy or sell, of course most of the people you meet will be the ones who buy or sell frequently. You'd never even know the buy-and-hold investors existed, because they're not the ones talking to an investment bank.

Agreed, that is a factor, but give me some credit for knowing that. I stand by my original comment.

I'm not sure how most shareholders think, but if it were me, I would certainly not be counting on stock for retirement. I would be looking to increase stock earnings in order to purchase capitol and create business and research opportunities, all of which are things that you don't want to wait for retirement to do.

Why would anyone pay a 10% premium for a company likely to be destroyed?

As long as you realize your gains before the stock tanks, why do you give a fuck? The only people affected are the employees, the customers, and the mugs who invest for the long term.

If you expect to make your gains on the stock price (not, say, dividends), it's a perfectly rational strategy. Of course, it leads to things like IBM borrowing money for stock buy-backs to pump the price to make the numbers, which will be a long term disaster...

And where do you imagine those gains come from?

If you can buy something and then convince other people it's worth more than it is then you'll turn a profit while screwing those people, sure. But that's true of anything - cars, houses, bridges....

No it's not, your argument excludes factors that are huge in reality. For example, these executives that find themselves in a position to do that usually have only found themselves in that role after an extensive amount of time (10+ years) working for not only that industry, but that company, building their entire reputations.

Many of these guys also continue to rely on their network for further opportunities and support. Their network would cut them out like gangrene, just like the old Enron titans, as to maintain their own good standing they couldn't be affiliated with somebody who clearly blew up their past company. That would be bad business, and that type of behavior would have prevented them from reaching those positions in the first place.

Who needs further opportunities and support when they already have $XXmm in the bank? At that point you can do whatever the fuck you want.

How would it have prevented someone from investing in Yo, exactly?

Fwiw once you own a certain percentage of a public company, there are all sorts of rules about when and how long you can hold stuff.

If it was true that the market wanted to destroy companies for short term gains, you'd make a fortune by shorting the stocks.

The reality is, stock prices are a reflection of anticipated future value. If shareholders get wind that the company is destroying its future value, they'll dump the stock as fast as possible.

Plenty of companies have high P/Es, meaning that shareholders are clearly in it for the long term.

Thank you for the simple, coherent rebuttal to what has become my least favorite anti-corporate illogic. The "all companies are in it for the short term" argument makes as much sense as "weed will never be legal because they can't tax it."

A CEO once told me that he (legally) manipulated the books to show the numbers that "Wall Street" wanted. The market wasn't fooled and his stock tanked.

Bill Gates once said that he paid no attention to Wall Street or the MSFT stock price - he concentrated on making money and let the stock take care of itself. We all know how that worked out :-)

I feel like this is reflective of reality and also an under appreciated view. The whole job of a good analyst is to be able to see through and reverse engineer any financial engineering.

Not all companies are, yes. But a shockingly high number definitely is!

Look outside the class of Apple, Failbook and MS.

I'll bite :-)

Name two that have the current stock price artificially inflated by destroying the long term company value.

Valeant Allergan

Valeant currently inflated?

I meant the decisions that first lead to their metoeric rise of over 700%, but ultimately may have doomed its long term potential.

Valeant's price is pretty damn low. It's possible their real value is zero (part of the reason the price is so low), but not likely. I'd bet their long-term value is higher than their current market value.

Are you claiming that Allergan's proposed merger is going to destroy their long-term value? Why?

Allergan: After Allergan's previous merger with Actavis they gutted the R&D department to cut costs to justify the merger. They layed 70% of their discovery team, including all but one of their med chemist.

This team and company were not bloated either: They had consistently produced promising drugs over a period of 60+ years. The stock had risen by 500% in five years and posted atleast double digit returns for a decade. Most unfortunate is that Allergan had several promising drugs in the pipeline, but the majority of early phase development got canned. It really was a unicorn that was destined for great things, but got consumed by the latest craze of "don't do R&D just buy companies and raise drug prices by 1000%". Also, recall that the company did not want to merge, but was forced to by the hostile takeover attempt by Valeant. Interesting to see Valeant stock plunge: The new Allergan CEO (Brent Saunders) and the Valeant CEO (Michael Pearson) have similar philosphies and used to work at the same consulting agency. I think Allergan will still do well, but long term they are going to miss out on massive growth potential. IE: Short term cuts to appease shareholders that limit long term growth.

Valeant: Okay the price is currently low, but this correction is after riding a 700% wave fueled by short term decisions. If you are massively in debt and your only growth vectors are creative accounting, buying ever larger companies, and raising your prices, the writing is on the wall.

It's easy to sagely dissect the past and identify the mistaken decisions.

The hard part, though, is identifying a company that today has a share price that is artificially high based on the company having destroyed its long term value. I.e. before the stock tanks.

But if they're a shockingly high number of them, shouldn't they be easy to identify, and short?

Yes it is hard to find them, but looking for companies with a high short ratio [1] is a good place to start. Looking at the top 50 short ratio US companies, MannKind jumps out at me as a stock I would not want to hold [2].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_interest_ratio

2. http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3062-nasdaqshort-hig...

What is your definition of destroying long term company value? Every action has an element of risk - companies can be riskier than others and in effect artificially inflate value, but destroy long term value with a bad bet.

Good example: Fed Reserve & quantitative easing

Horrible example. Can you please rebut the extensive literature showing the Fed did the exact right thing?

Hypothesis: Few investors (even the ones that see some long term opportunity) want to hold stock for a very long term. This is for a variety of reasons, including liquidity, individual opportunity costs, risks, individual lifetime (if you're old you may be uninterested in a 20 year bet), obsolescence, etc. In the end that horizon dictates of the actions of a shareholder controlled company.

So if the majority of the capital [holders] on the stock market are looking for near/medium term gains, you'll see boards that "maximize shareholder value" populated by those individuals. Their actions will maximize near/medium term value without much regard to long term. That the company could tank doesn't bother them; few investors in the market will be willing to go on a very long term bet against this stock, per the hypothesis, so the stock will do just fine in the near/medium term as a self-fulfilling prophecy; eventually those decisions may catch up and tank the stock, at which point most will jump ship with comfortable profit.

It's well known that having a long term interest yields much better results on the stock market (viz Buffet, other large investors that control companies). Not every investor has this luxury.

So I agree that it may be a good idea to change corporate structure if

1) the hypothesis is good

2) we want to see companies succeed more on long time frames (one might not necessarily want this, maybe with Darwinist ideals, or favoring rapid technological/structural change)

In fact I've seen some companies recently do just that: deliberately neglect shareholder micromanagement in favor of the long term. Companies that retain founders or have CEOs with a strong vision are the ones more able to do this.

The perfect case study of long vs short term thinking is HP under the founders direct control vs Fiorina's reign of terror.

McDonaldss.

There are probably different kinds of investors with different financial philosophies. To make this statement any more meaningful we'd need quality quantifications; this is an empirical question that a firm or someone with access can answer.

But modelling long into a market's future in a way that is more accurate than other models, and with appreciable effect size, is probably way harder than short-term predictions. We should expect any approximate model to drift over time.

So if you have confidence in short-term modelling, then of course you're going to engage in behavior that is profitable to you in the short-term, even if that causes detriment to the company in the long-term. I don't know if there's enough long-term investor money to counterbalance short-term investors money. But this is an empirical question, and we need quantifications to advance the conversation.

This attitude is court-enforced. Shareholders have sued in the past and the Supreme Court has ruled that that publicly traded companies exist to serve the interest of shareholders.

Can you give an example of such a case?

Dodge v. Ford Motor Company, 170 NW 668 (Mich 1919); AP Smith Manufacturing Co v Barlow, 98 A.2d 581 (N.J. 1953); Shlensky v Wrigley, 237 NE 2d 776 (Ill. App. 1968)

Yes, this legal situation brings about lots of unwelcome outcomes, environmental and social impacts often have to be put aside by a 'caring' company as the law dictates they must do whatever is legal and best serves the interest of the shareholders. The UK has a relatively new entity that can avoid this and still operate with most of the benefits of a regular limited company, a 'Community Interest Company', the 'community purpose' is regulated.

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/office-of-the-re...

A slightly off-topic aside, but tangentially related... I find promise in the 'Economics of Happiness' and GNH work, it's an emerging term and field attempting to measure human happiness in a consistent manner, this would allow any proposed action to have a line item on the costings with a figure that is derived from the amount of 'happiness' that would be created, or destroyed, as a result.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_National_Happiness

The US has B Corporations - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation

Probably the most famous company running as a B corp at present would be http://www.bcorporation.net/community/ben-and-jerrys

This is a significant plot point in the book Cryptonomicon.

> Oddly, no previous management research has looked at what the legal literature says about the topic, so we conducted a systematic analysis of a century’s worth of legal theory and precedent. It turns out that the law provides a surprisingly clear answer: Shareholders do not own the corporation, which is an autonomous legal person. What’s more, when directors go against shareholder wishes—even when a loss in value is documented—courts side with directors the vast majority of the time.

http://hbr.org/2010/04/the-myth-of-shareholder-capitalism/ar...

His words reminded me of the writing of Sumantra Ghoshal: https://www.mnot.net/blog/2005/07/23/ghoshal

Any investor over 10% has to give up any profits if they buy then sell within six months...

It's unfortunate that going public is viewed as the endgame goal by so many. The best work environments I've been in were private companies. One went from great to awful in a matter of weeks after being acquired by a public company.

> The economy would fare a LOT better in my eyes if any investor over a certain threshold (10k?) was forced to hold the stock in question for 12 months at a minimum, [...]

You can do this naturally by simply increasing the short-term capital gains tax rate; currently it's calculated as pure income tax which maxes out around 40%.

I coincidentally sat in on a pitch to Zimmer's new company zTailors about a year ago over at their office in Oakland. Having visited numerous startups in the Bay Area over the years, zTailors was one of the few that walking into their office you instantly knew it was being run like a real business rather than your typical VC funded runaway train.

Also, I almost walked straight into Zimmer on my way out — definitely as impressive in person as in his commercials.

I wish Zimmer would go rogue and start writing a real talk blog about the menswear industry.

He shows up at Salesforce.com's Dreamforce every year, and Benioff drags him on stage to talk about his work, or more recently, his new business. When he pitched zTailors this year, it was clear they were going to succeed, just by how he discussed the company.

Additionally, it shows how savvy he is being at Dreamforce. Say what you will about Salesforce, building a startup in their walled garden can be incredibly lucrative if the mothership casts its eye upon you.

> Also, I almost walked straight into Zimmer on my way out — definitely as impressive in person as in his commercials.

I know this is a little irrelevant and irreverent, but I've always found it remarkable that Zimmer is magnetic enough on television to inspire internet memes.

When I was in graduate school, I had a minor nervous breakdown. Not related to school, more about thinking too much about life, death, career, money, and I had a weird pain in my head--that I thought must be a tumor. I always went to the worst senerio?

In those horrid months, I had one dream repeatedly, and it was so American.

The dream was I was a chess piece on a large chess board. I think I was a pawn? In the dream, George was yelling at me so vociferously, the air from his lungs was blowing me off the chess board. I would try to grab on to the other chess pieces, but the gail force was so strong, I would just slide on the board. I knew if I was pushed off the board, I would just fall,and fall. When I got to the absolute edge, I would wake up--sometimes--covered in sweat.

I have worn a suit, and tie one time since that period on my life. It was my sisters wedding, I couldn't wait to get the tie off. It felt like a noose.

Not fun times, but I can look back and find some amusement in my pain. If anyone reading this is going through bad times, I can guarantee it will get better with time.

In reality, George Zimmerman looks like a decent guy to work for. I felt bad when they let him go as the spokesperson.

George Zimmer, not Zimmerman

Oh wow, this is similar to the kind of clothing startup I've thought about, I'm glad someone is doing it.

I'm not surprised that a company whose management was selected largely on the basis of childhood friendship and whose members include Deepak Chopra, one of the world's most cyncial charlatans (really? You didn't think he was motivated by money? Do you even know who he is? His whole schtick is snake-oil sales) is not doing well. I also have a hard time believing this was as abrupt as the article claims.

My reading of the article didn't imply that it was soley on the basis of friendship, but just that one of his members was a close friend.

EDIT: s/one/some/; s/a close friend/close friends/

>"His abrupt ouster came as a personal blow, especially since he counted some of the directors among his closest friends"

Not surprising since BoDs are drawn from surpassingly small and tightly-intertwined groups -- though every market and market vertical tend to have their own sets. Everybody knows everyone in those worlds....

The interesting question then really is: how exactly do you staff a Board of Directors? Not a question that a lot of people struggle with, I'm sure. But perhaps something that needs a better answer than "with the people I know and trust".

Once again, nothing there implies that they were chosen solely because they were friends. Could have been highly qualified people who just happen to also be his friends.

You're right, I wish NYT had taken time to interview someone from the board to get both sides of the story.

The board outlined their side in a press release shortly after Zimmer's termination: http://ir.menswearhouse.com/press-releases/detail/12/mens-we...

I have to wonder how they feel about their decisions now.

From what I can gather, he put together a pretty cool company with nice ethics. I heard that he hired felons saying that everyone needs a second chance. He treated his employees well. The company, so far as I know, was doing well. Not cranking the stock price but making bank and taking care of customers and employees. What's so awful about that?

I'd love to hear advice from any HNers in the know about the best way to buy quality tailored menswear and get the most bang for your buck, particularly suits. I know you're not going to get that at a chain, and there's a lot of information about bespoke online, but I'd like to know what HN thinks about it.

Where in the world are you?

Editting since I can't reply. Technologically limiting... There's an irony here.

So the first thing is to understand the kind of tailoring you're after. There's a difference between fully bespoke and having adjustments made. The latter is 98% of the fit that you'll get, with a shorter time to wait, and you'll be wearing similar things before which can give you a better idea of what you'll end up with if you haven't bought a fully tailored suit before.

The second thing is to consider what you're buying for. There's a difference, obviously, between buying for a daily suit to wear, and purchasing for a more formal or occasion specific outfit (for example, a white tie event suit with tails).

That being said, here's some general pointers.

Wool is worth the money. It wears well, it's classic, and it'll be able to adjust nicely if you put on or lose weight/muscle. A good navy or charcoal wool suit as a daily is a solid choice. Look for a good weight in a daily wear. 8-10oz would be my choice.

Jacket: partially or ideally fully canvased would by my choice. It's more expensive but harder wearing, and it'll mould to.the shape of your body better. It'll also generally have better definition and shape.

Ask what will be hand sewn. More fiddly areas like the cuffs and collar will get a better fit if hand finished. On a similar note, think about what you want in terms of a style considering your body shape. If you're leaner, a suit with narrow darts and some padding in the shoulder will accentuate the torso. Pinstripes have a similar effect, in lengthening the body. Talk to your tailor and get recommendations based on your particular body shape. For example, I'm tall bit broad shouldered, so I tend to go for a smaller card shoulder pad, to allow for definition but still create mobility in the arms.

Now, for more formal wear, you're going to be getting more expensive. Similar considerations apply, but think about the whole outfit. What shoes you'll be wearing will influence fabric colour choice. Is it white or black tie? Bow tie or less formal?

For a full white tie outfit, for example, you'll want to think about how often you'll wear it. There's places you can save money, in terms of garment longevity if you aren't planning on wearing regularly. For example, lighter wools will cost less (essentially you're buying less material, and the thinner wools are easier to work).

Also, plan to spend some time. A full fitting will be between 30-50ish measurements, depending on your size and body shape. That takes time. Ask about how many times you'll need to be fitted. Assume twice, but a larger person may need three or four.

Finally, I'd generally say classic for formal and daily, but modern for events. For example, if I'm attending a more relaxed business event, I'll wear a Saville Row with a particularly bright lining, or perhaps something with a more interesting outer fabric.

If you want to chat more, feel free to email me.

Apologies for any typos - on my mobile.

The USA.

I'd be interested in that as well. I've heard people say that a well-tailored suit or tux can be exceptionally comfortable, to the point that some prefer them over "business casual" attire; that would be the polar opposite of my usual experience.

Business casual isn't usually expertly tailored. Tailoring makes clothes fit better, which makes them more comfortable.

I live in the Bay (apparently so does Zimmer). Some girls came to our office and took our measurements. I got a tailored dress shirt for $100 https://www.trumaker.com . Really quality too. I brag about how it's tailored if someone compliments me on it.

Well, that entirely depends on your goals, budget and location.

Do you want a made to measure suit, tailored to your body? Or do you want a bespoke suit (mostly the same, but tailored entirely by hand).

If you're in America and you'd like an entry level "luxury" made to measure suit, Brooks Brothers is nice at $1500/suit or so. You can also try for other luxury brands, up to and including Tom Ford, at $40,000/suit (or more).

For a bespoke suit you can spend anywhere from $2000 (cheap) to mid five figures. Saville Row in London is "the place" to go for these, but if you're in America there are many small shops in New York City across all sorts of price ranges.

In general a bespoke suit is better than a merely made to measure suit (at least financially it has a better cost justification and there is an "experience" factor), and a brand name is commonly thought of as less desirable than an independent tailor.

Beyond that it's harder to give a good answer without more detail on what you want, how much you can spend and where you are. Personally I'd never get a suit at Men's Wearhouse, I have found the attention to detail and patronage there is lacking. At the absolute bottom in terms of price, mysuit.com is nice for bang for your buck factor.

My personal recommendation is to spend the money on a bespoke suit, all things being equal. An experienced tailor making a bespoke suit will cost more, but will more easily achieve an attractive and comfortable fit than a machine will. You also have much greater choice.

In my opinion, paying for a made to measure suit is only slightly better than buying off the rack. Bespoke suits are usually offered by independent tailors, not larger brand names. This means that bespoke suits are usually expensive due to the skilled labor costs associated with making a fitted suit by hand. But a made to measure suit is usually just a higher offering than an off the rack suit at a brand name luxury store (Brooks Brothers, Emporio Armani, Canali, Brioni, Zegna, etc.). In other words, you pay for some tailoring skill and a lot of brand name. I'd rather spend $5000 on a bespoke suit from an obscure but skilled tailor on Saville Row than $5000 on a made to measure Canali.

I encourage everyone who can to purchase bespoke or made to measure suits, however. I find tailored suits so comfortable that I enjoy wearing them. The signaling effect is also nice. You can clearly tell the difference between a suit off the rack and a suit that has been tailored to a custom fit. If you spring for higher quality materials you can vastly improve the durability and comfort as well.

If you'd like a few exact brands to check out, indiscriminate of price:

• Bespoke suits - Huntsman, Gieves & Hawkes

• Made to measure suits - Brooks Brothers, Canali

• Tailored shirts - Thomas Pink, Turnbull & Asser

• Ties - Hermes, Drake's of London

• Shoes - John Lobb, Stefanelli, Bemer

Hope this helps you out.

EDIT: petewailes also has good advice in this subthread

Also, one of the real advantages of a bespoke suit, shirt, whatever, is that the tailor now has your pattern and can knock out a new suit or shirt for you with nothing more than a phone call (provided you haven't been hitting the all-you-can-eat buffets too hard).

MTailor is a YC company that makes a mobile app that will take your measurements via video and deliver you a custom made shirt or suit. (Disclosure: I funded them at YC). I've personally had good results with the shirts, waiting on a suit now. It is very competitively priced (I've actually told them repeatedly to raise prices!). I've gotten custom shirts from other tailors but prefer buying from mtailor now because of the ease of it.

MTailor or M-Tailor? Looks like y'all may have an imitator.

I'm in Canada and I really like BMV bespoke:

http://www.bmvbespoke.com

It's small and family-owned -- two brothers based out of Hong Kong, but travelling around constantly. You meet them in a hotel room, get your measurements taken, and a few weeks later you get beautiful suits in the mail. (At least I've always had good luck!) They're tailor-made, nice quality, and inexpensive. They do shirts too but I prefer their suits myself.

How much did you spend on avg. for a suit?

I usually buy when they have a promotion on of some kind -- I spend about $2k at a time and usually get a couple suits and perhaps a couple shirts. So that's maybe $800 (CDN) per suit? They also offered snazzier fabrics etc. for higher prices (although I still got 100% wool, not synthetic).

I had to wear a suit every day at one of the Wall Street firms that I worked for. The reality is that a "good" suit is going to be expensive - there is no way around that. If you don't want to shell out for a bespoke suit, you can also find very nice made-to-measure selections at upscale stores like Neiman Marcus. Prices vary wildly, but you are going to be looking at a minimum of around $2-3K for a decent suit. Also, if you're going to wear a suit for work and not just once a year to a wedding or whatever, you need to remember that you'll want two pairs of the slacks - you don't want to buy a $3K suit then tear the slacks six months later and find out you can't get that particular fabric anymore.

Not necessarily 2-3k. I just had a Hickey-Freeman MTM made via Nordstrom during one of their sales and walked out the door just under $1300 (for a $2k list suit).

But yes, listen to this guy when he says to buy two pairs of trousers.

Oh definitely - if you're not in a rush you can find some great deals like that. I have a couple of Hickey-Freeman suits that I got a great deal on (not as good as you though) and they have held up really nicely. I was actually surprised that they were just as nice as the some of the Italian ones that I bought and were considerably less expensive.

"not in a rush" -- that's something else worth mentioning. Most reasonable MTM tailors will still take 1mo+ to deliver your suit, and it's frequently more like 2mo. Bespoke isn't really much, if any, slower.

To your point about quality -- I'm actually at a point in my life where I can afford and am willing to spend a bit on American made products (e.g. shoes, suiting) and do where practical. Even though the mills aren't here (Loro Piana, Elgin, Isaia, etc), at least the rest is.

As somebody who's never worn a suit in my adult lifetime, even that $1300 figure feels like staring into some absurdist alternate universe.

A suit is all about fit, and it's a lot of labor to make one fit properly.

Also, it is generally possible to charge more for products sold to folks who gotta wear suits.

If you need several, fly to India and combine it with a great vacation. You can have a suit custom tailored for ~$200-400.

If you want the most bang for your buck, you need to understand off-the-rack suits. They're generally cheapest, but the point of them is not that they're ready to wear. They are unfinished products, made to be altered. The point in an off-the-rack suit is that you buy it, take it to a skilled tailor, and (for a few hundred dollars) have it altered exactly to fit you. A well-altered off-the-rack suit will look quite good: not as good as a fully bespoke suit, but it'll be close.

(Provided that the initial off-the-rack suit is reasonably good to begin with.)

Buying several suits? Get yourself on an airplane to Hong Kong. Go to Nathan Road. Be accosted by a hundred Bangladeshi salesmen trying to drag you into their tailor storefront. Pick one you like. Day 1 get fitted, day 2, second fitting. Maybe allow another day for corrections. Before you go, do some research on fabric and stuff, and take photos of styles you like. If you don't know what to pay before you set foot in the shop, you might pay too much.

If you're not just looking for the cheapest, but good quality at less than $1,000, Suit Supply.

Check out suitsupply.com. Also, check out styleforum.net for good advice on menswear.

I bought a suit from indochino.com this year and was really happy with it. They are made to measure and start around $500. I don't know if I'd call it a great suit, but it fits pretty well, and is more than adequate for someone like me who wears a suit about once a year. The fit and quality are definitely better than anything I've owned in the past, or anything I've seen off the rack in that price range.

The customer service was also good. The first pair of pants didn't fit, which was probably due to a measuring mistake on my part. They took them back and remade them, no charge and no questions asked.

Make sure its 100% wool for starters. Don't get ripped off by the plastic stuff.

Get a 100% wool suit that you think feels quality. Make sure it fits you, the take it to a tailor to get it fitted.

“As soon as the tailor saw me he embraced me and started sobbing,” Mr. Zimmer said. “I have a bond with tailors. It’s not because I’m a tailor myself but because they know I care about how they experience their jobs.”

On a day like today, I am especially grateful for all the "Mr. Zimmer"s in the world who respect the craft, even if they're not a craftsman themself. The tech world needs more of this kind of guy.

He hits the nail on the head with his differentiating shareholders from stakeholders.

Shareholders are just investors.

Stakeholders include investors, employees, customers, and vendors. All of them matter.

Like it or not, share price sideways to one of those groups only.

Would be interesting to know exactly why the board was so vehement about ousting him.

> A year after Mr. Zimmer’s ouster, Men’s Wearhouse acquired Joseph A. Bank for about $1.8 billion — a merger Mr. Zimmer had vociferously opposed.

I guess that the board's personal coffers were filled with cash in order to get rid of opposition. Funny how it turned out in the end.

The board will probably be okay.

Employees and customers won't be.

Well but the in(v/f)estment fund will have lost a load of cash. And like Mr. Zimmer, I'm glad of this.

I have been curious as well and just came across this old Fortune article http://fortune.com/2013/12/09/exclusive-george-zimmer-on-bei...

It seems he had a few bouts with the board about various issues and lost: http://ir.menswearhouse.com/press-releases/detail/12/mens-we...

I remember he was pro pot and prostitution long before it was cool.

I'm really glad that the merger between Men's Warehouse and Jos A Bank's bombed. These were two great companies that constantly tried to one-up each other. I feel that level of competition led to both companies doing well. Then they got greedy and decided that competition wasn't easy and that collusion through merger would be better. Now they've killed the goose that laid the golden egg. Discount men's wear was Men's Warehouse and Jos A Bank's. I expect to see new companies enter this market to fill the void.

Corporate governance is a huge problem in the market right now. Like others have mentioned workers and stockholders will pay for the ineptness of this board. Short term gain via activist investors is leading to crappy mergers, stupid breakups, and what should be illegal inversions.

I actually believe this is another sign of a top in the market when you see "investors" trying to squeeze the last bit of gains though these types of schemes.

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