Canada’s oldest company, Hudson’s Bay, could soon permanently close its doors to customers as it runs out of business more than 350 years after it began.
Financial struggles in an ever-changing retail landscape have pushed the company to the brink as it awaits court approval to liquidate all of its stores across the country.
The case is still being considered by the Ontario Superior Court. Once approved, a store-by-store liquidation process could begin as early as this week, Hudson’s Bay Company says.
The iconic retailer’s liquidation would leave a giant hole in the Canadian retail landscape, said Bruce Winder, a retail expert.
“If they go into liquidation, there’s going to be a massive, gaping hole in retail in Canada,” he said.
“So many malls will have empty spaces, etc. It’s just going to leave a big impact to our psyche, too, as Canadians.”
As Hudson’s Bay prepares to wind down its business, here’s what customers should know.
Liquidation is when a company that is ceasing operations has a timeline for going out of business and the process lets retailers empty their stores of existing inventory, said David Soberman, a marketing professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.
“In order to cease operations, obviously they need to get rid of all of the merchandise that is in their stores,” he said.
Pending approval from the court, the liquidation process could start as soon as this week, Hudson’s Bay Company said in a news release on March 14.
The company said it would share more details on final sales events.
“Once the liquidation sale begins, all sales will be final,” it adds.
Soberman said his advice to consumers is that once the liquidation sales start, people should try to go to the stores as soon as possible before the most attractive merchandise runs out of stock.
Hudson’s Bay has 80 stores, as well as the three Saks Fifth Avenue stores and 13 Saks Off 5th locations in Canada that it owns through a licensing agreement. It wants to liquidate all of them.
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There are 32 stores in Ontario, while British Columbia hosts 16 locations, Alberta and Quebec each have 13 and Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan have two per province.
Saks Fifth Avenue’s Canadian sites are split between Ontario and Alberta and Saks Off 5th has stores in Ontario, B.C., Alberta, Quebec and Manitoba.
Soberman said the decision to close stores will depend on how quickly the company is able to liquidate the merchandise.
“The objective would be to have by early June all of the stores to be closed and all of the merchandise to be gone,” he said.
In a sign it hasn’t given up completely, Hudson’s Bay also wants the option to remove some stores from the liquidation process if it can secure additional funding before the process is complete.
As for online shoppers, Hudson’s Bay’s lawyer Elizabeth Pillon said the liquidation will extend to the company’s e-commerce business, which will continue until its Toronto warehouse empties.
The court heard on Monday that the liquidation process at Hudson’s Bay will take up to 12 weeks. In court filings, the company said it wants to wrap up by June 15.
Hudson’s Bay was founded as a fur trading company in 1670.
Over the years, it has gone through rebrands from the Hudson’s Bay Company to the Bay and now simply HBC.
The Canadian retailer was purchased in 2008 by NRDC Equity Partners, an American private investment firm.
Long before filing for creditor protection earlier this month, there were signs of financial trouble.
The company has spent the last several years in a state of deterioration as it closed several stores and carried out several rounds of layoffs, citing challenging headwinds.
The department store company said in a statement on March 7 that it has been facing significant pressures, including subdued consumer spending, trade tensions between the U.S. and Canada and post-pandemic declines in downtown store traffic.
Among other factors, Soberman said the growth of online retailing has been especially “devastating” for department stores like Hudson’s Bay.
“When you take a look at the Bay, it’s really the last man standing, because we had a number of large department store chains that over the years have failed, most recently Sears,” he said.
On top of that, Hudson’s Bay has had to compete with many focused traditional retailers that offer similar merchandise, such as clothing, sporting goods or household items.
The company will stop accepting gift cards after April 6 and has already stopped selling them.
As of Feb. 1, Canadian customers had outstanding gift cards worth a total value of about $24.2 million.
The loyalty program has been paused while the creditor protection process continues.
More than 8.2 million Canadian customers hold about $58.5 million in unused points.
Time is running out for Hudson’s Bay and experts say its options to stay open are limited.
“I think when you get to this point and you’re starting to talk about planning liquidation, the likelihood of suddenly coming back from the dead is very low,” Soberman said.
Winder said the company could get a lifeline if someone swoops in and buys it, but that’s not looking likely.
“If they can find financing, that’s another way that they could stay alive, but again, the hour is getting very late unless the landlords make massive concessions to them, which they haven’t so far,” he said.
Despite running out of business, Soberman said the Hudson Bay’s brand, symbol and iconic stripes that have been around for hundreds of years will continue to “live on.”
“That design and those logos are something that will live on, because those can be packaged by the people that are in charge of liquidation and sold to another apparel manufacturer or a person that wants to license those brands,” he said.
— with files from The Canadian Press