WikipediaExtracts:Hudson's Bay Company
Extracted from Wikipedia --
The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) is a Canadian holding company of department stores, and the oldest corporation in North America. It is the owner of the namesake Hudson's Bay department stores (colloquially The Bay), and also owns or manages approximately 3.7 million square metres (40 million square feet) of gross leasable real estate through its HBC Properties and Investments business unit. HBC previously owned the full-line Saks Fifth Avenue and off-price Saks Off 5th in the United States, which were spun-off into the Saks Global holding company in 2024.
After incorporation by English royal charter in 1670, the company was granted a right of "sole trade and commerce" over an expansive area of land known as Rupert's Land, comprising much of the Hudson Bay drainage basin. This right gave the company a commercial monopoly over that area. The HBC functioned as the de facto government in Rupert's Land for nearly 200 years until the HBC relinquished control of the land to Canada in 1869 as part of the Deed of Surrender, authorized by the Rupert's Land Act 1868. At its peak, the company controlled the fur trade throughout much of the English- and later British-controlled North America. By the mid-19th century, the company evolved into a mercantile business selling a wide variety of products from furs to fine homeware in a small number of sales shops (as opposed to trading posts) across Canada. These shops were the first step towards the department stores the company owns today. The department stores have continuously operated for 144 years, including expansions internationally through acquisitions.
In 2006, American businessman Jerry Zucker bought HBC for US$1.1 billion. In 2008, HBC was acquired by NRDC Equity Partners, which also owned the upmarket American department store Lord & Taylor. From 2008 to 2012, the HBC was run through a holding company of NRDC, Hudson's Bay Trading Company, which was dissolved in early 2012. HBC's American headquarters are in Lower Manhattan, New York City, while its Canadian headquarters are in Toronto. The company spun off most of its European operations by August 2019 and its remaining stores there, in the Netherlands, were sold by the end of 2019. The company was listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "HBC.TO" until American businessman Richard Baker and a group of shareholders took the company private in March 2020.
In March 2025, the company filed for creditor protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act and began liquidating Hudson's Bay stores.
