Hudson's Bay goes to court to seek approval to begin liquidating its business

The Canadian Press

· Posted: Mar 17, 2025 9:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 6 minutes ago

Hudson's Bay is acceptable to beryllium backmost successful tribunal connected Monday, wherever it volition question support to statesman liquidating its full business, putting much than 9,000 jobs astatine risk.

The section store, which holds the rubric of Canada's oldest company, says it has been forced toward a afloat liquidation due to the fact that "exhaustive" efforts haven't turned up the financing it needs to support astatine slightest immoderate of its empire alive.

Given the company's fiscal situation, it wants to reason the liquidation process by June 15.

But it says it remains optimistic it tin drum up superior and find a solution with cardinal stakeholders, peculiarly its landlord partners, to debar a afloat shutdown.

In an exertion to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Hudson's Bay said it was struggling due to the fact that of subdued user spending, commercialized tensions betwixt the U.S. and Canada, and post-pandemic drops successful downtown store traffic.

The retailer owns 80 Hudson's Bay locations arsenic good arsenic 3 Saks Fifth Avenue stores and 13 Saks Off 5th locations successful Canada, done a licensing agreement.

Origins of Hudson's Bay

Hudson's Bay Company, successful its archetypal form, was founded by fur traders and owned a immense tract of bluish Canada astir Hudson Bay wherever it operated a far-flung concatenation of trading posts.

Dating backmost to 1670, it has been profoundly entrenched successful Canadian history, but has been led by Americans for respective decades now.

The designer down astir of the Bay's modern past is Richard Baker, an American existent property titan whose National Realty and Development Corp. Equity Partners bought the institution successful 2008 from the widow of precocious South Carolina businessman Jerry Zucker for $1.1 billion.

Baker took it nationalist successful 2012, lone to reverse people done a takeover bid that had to beryllium sweetened doubly earlier shareholders accepted it successful aboriginal 2020, up of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.