A liquidation plan at Canada’s oldest company could begin at all of its locations as soon as Tuesday and last for up to 12 weeks, but Hudson’s Bay is still holding out hope that it will find a lifeline.
Lawyers for the beleaguered retailer said in an Ontario court Monday morning that if approved by the judge, the liquidation would span 80 stores as well as three Saks Fifth Avenue stores and 13 Saks Off 5th locations in Canada that it owns through a licensing agreement.
The process Hudson’s Bay is proposing would allow the retailer to remove some stores from the liquidation, should it find sufficient financing during the 10 to 12 weeks when lawyer Ashley Taylor expects the company to offload its inventory.
“A quick start will maximize the value of the business … and preserve whatever chance there is of a restructuring,” Taylor told Ontario Superior Court Judge Peter Osborne in a hearing at a Toronto courtroom Monday.
Hasn’t Hudson’s Bay previously liquidated?
I love a bit of heritage but HB is a business. They’ve failed to stay relevant in the economy and they’re faltering. Okay, bye? Am I supposed to feel bad that a corporation might disappear?
Well, it’s going out of business because it’s owned by an American real-estate hedge fund who has been deliberately driving it into the ground.
At the end of the day, all of that retail real estate is going to be parcelled up and leased to other companies - probably American.
There are no more Canadian department stores. Woodwards, Eaton’s Simpsons-Sears, Zellers, Woolco, and now The Bay. They’ve all been destroyed by Walmart and Amazon. Beaver, Rona, and Peavey Mart are all destroyed or consumed by Lowe’s and Home Depot.
The primary driver of retail in Canada is now American hedge and venture capitalism, which inherently harms consumers and employees. This is not going to make things better for anyone except the obscenely wealthy.
Home Hardware is a Canadian hardware store chain locally owned and operated by franchisees.
And the one at Parkway Mall on Ellesmere Road in Toronto, sells out-of-season candy for cheap, lol.
If nothing else you should feel something for the 9000 Canadians that will be out of a job.
Oh, I do.
You raise a good question: for those staff, in the department stores, in logistics, in HR, in technology, in management, in marketing, design, etc. — how likely are they to find new work? How many of those 9000 employees will face real hardship, and how many will find new work in the role they’re in now?
I don’t know the answers! Losing one’s job is always tough — financially, emotionally. I hope if their roles are cut they find good positions soon.
But for Hudson’s Bay, the business? Couldn’t care less
It would not surprise me at all to learn that cheeto had put some pressure on HBC’s ownership to start this ball rolling. After all Trump has said he’d use economic pressure to annex Canada. Almost 10,000 people out of a job almost overnight would fit the bill.
The HBC History Foundation will continue to exist as a non-profit and all the HBC records have been held by the Manitoba Archives since the 70s, so the bit of heritage that actually matters is going to stay.
I feel bad that a US private equity firm bought them and is now just liquidating what they can so they can extract what little value is left and dump the company without even pension funds.
They’re not dumping any leftovers because they didn’t buy HBC for the stores … they bought it because of all the land HBC owns.