After his Standard General LP became the retailer’s largest shareholder last year with a 9.9 percent stake, Soohyung Kim repeatedly pressed RadioShack’s leadership to give up on the business of selling phones attached to long-term service agreements, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The business, he argued, was by far the biggest reason the company wasn’t profitable. Now, the New York hedge fund is putting its money where its mouth is, seeking to lead the purchase of about half the company’s stores out of bankruptcy protection and refocus them on the cables and gadgets that were once a staple of the Fort Worth, Texas-based chain. Sprint Corp. would manage phone sales in a “store-within-a-store” setup. The fund has discussed contributing about $75 million toward a $200 million bid for the new RadioShack, a person familiar with the matter said, a deal that would essentially trade a rescue loan it contributed to and arranged for the retailer last year for an ownership stake. But some analysts give the revamped retailer long odds of success.
