The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; "CBH") is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada and the United States. In 2006 HBC was sold for $1.1 billion to an American business man, Jerry Zucker, and as such is no longer a Canadian-owned company. The company sold most of its European operations by August 2019 and its remaining stores, in the Netherlands, were closed by the end of 2019. HBC owns the Saks Fifth Avenue and Saks Fifth Avenue Off 5th stores in the United States; most other American operations were sold by mid-2019 and the last remaining stores (Lord & Taylor chain) were sold prior to the end of 2019.
Introduction
Hudson's Bay Company
Hudson's Bay Company | Introduction
American business man, Jerry Zucker Jerry Zucker. Jerry Zucker Sorry. I cannot find the answer based on the context.
where is the headwaters of the willamette river
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Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest region of North America
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who were the first people to inhabit the area along the above-mentioned river?
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Native American community
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what was the major trade done on this river?
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Fur trade
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who traded this, to whom?
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French-Canadians working for the Hudson's Bay Company
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who owns this company?
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The Canadian and U.S. holdings were transferred to NRDC Equity Partners' holding company, Hudson's Bay Trading Company, as of late 2008.
Hudson's Bay Company | 21st century
In February 2020, shareholders of the company voted in favour of a plan to become a private company at a special meeting of shareholders. Under the plan of arrangement, the company will be owned by a group of continuing shareholders led by HBC Governor and Executive Chairman Richard Baker. Effective March 3, 2020, the company was delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange, with Richard A. Baker replacing Foulkes as CEO.
Hudson's Bay Company | Moving forward
The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; "CBH") is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada and the United States. In 2006 HBC was sold for $1.1 billion to an American business man, Jerry Zucker, and as such is no longer a Canadian-owned company. The company sold most of its European operations by August 2019 and its remaining stores, in the Netherlands, were closed by the end of 2019. HBC owns the Saks Fifth Avenue and Saks Fifth Avenue Off 5th stores in the United States; most other American operations were sold by mid-2019 and the last remaining stores (Lord & Taylor chain) were sold prior to the end of 2019.
Hudson's Bay Company | Introduction
These shops were the first step towards the department stores the company owns today.
Hudson's Bay Company | Introduction
The company's namesake business division is Hudson's Bay, commonly referred to as The Bay ( in French). After incorporation by English royal charter in 1670, the company functioned as the "de facto" government in parts of North America for nearly 200 years until the HBC sold the land it owned (the entire Hudson Bay drainage basin, known as Rupert's Land) to Canada in 1869 as part of the Deed of Surrender, authorized by the Rupert's Land Act 1868. During 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.
Hudson's Bay Company | Introduction
In the 1821 merger with the North West Company, the Hudson's Bay Company gained control of North West Company trading posts west of the Rocky Mountains. They established headquarters at Fort George (formerly Astoria). George Simpson, Governor of Hudson's Bay Company, visited the Columbia District in 1824–25, journeying from York Factory. He investigated a quicker route than previously used, following the Saskatchewan River and crossing the mountains at Athabasca Pass. This route was thereafter followed by the York Factory Express brigades.
John McLoughlin | Hudson's Bay Company
In theory, much of modern Canada now belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company as Rupert's Land was a vast region, but in practice, the company only had a few forts on the sea coasts of northern Ontario and northern Québec, to which were later added forts on the sea coast of northern Manitoba. It was not until the late 18th century that the Hudson's Bay Company showed any interest in moving inland and making good its claims to control Rubert's Land. Both Radisson and Groseilliers operated within the HBC with the support of Prince Rupert and the Company's director Sir John Robinson.
Pierre-Esprit Radisson | Foundation of the Hudson's Bay Company
In the 17th century, the French had a de facto monopoly on the Canadian fur trade with their colony of New France. Two French traders, Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard des Groseilliers (Médard de Chouart, Sieur des Groseilliers), Radisson's brother-in-law, learned from the Cree that the best fur country lay north and west of Lake Superior, and that there was a "frozen sea" still further north. Assuming this was Hudson Bay, they sought French backing for a plan to set up a trading post on the Bay, to reduce the cost of moving furs overland. According to Peter C. Newman, "concerned that exploration of the Hudson Bay route might shift the focus of the fur trade away from the St.
Hudson's Bay Company | 17th century
In October 2017, Canada's oldest retailer Hudson Bay Company agreed to sell its historic Lord & Taylor Building to Rhône Capital and WeWork in a transaction valued at $850 million. The flagship building has been a presence on Fifth Avenue for more than a century, the 10-story limestone structure opened in 1914, and was named a New York City designated landmark in 2007.
Rhône Group | Hudson Bay Company
In March 1832, he was directed to his final trading post, Fort Nez Perces.
Pierre-Chrysologue Pambrun | Hudson's Bay Company
For 100 years the London-based Hudson’s Bay Company dominated the North American fur trade operating almost exclusively from their depots along the shores of Hudson Bay (though their charter, granted by Charles II in 1670 gave them exclusive rights to trade along the banks of any connected waterway), but competition from various Montréal merchants and later the North West Company in the 1770s changed this. The North West Company and others generally traded beyond the actual reach of the HBC, but generally still within their territory, easing the burden for natives of those regions to travel the long distance to Hudson Bay to trade.
Pemmican War | Background
Lawrence River, the French governor", Marquis d'Argenson (in office 1658–61), "refused to grant the coureurs de bois permission to scout the distant territory". Despite this refusal, in 1659 Radisson and Groseilliers set out for the upper Great Lakes basin. A year later they returned with premium furs, evidence of the potential of the Hudson Bay region. Subsequently, they were arrested for trading without a licence and fined, and their furs were confiscated by the government. Determined to establish trade in the Hudson Bay, Radisson and Groseilliers approached a group of English colonial businessmen in Boston, Massachusetts to help finance their explorations.
Hudson's Bay Company | 17th century
The store closed in 1960 when all HBC operations were centralized to the downtown location. Thereafter, the building was used only as a warehouse for HBC retail operations. The Bay retail stores were rebranded as Northern Stores Inc in 1987 and the warehouse was sold to Les Rocher who has owned it ever since. The Hudson's Bay Company warehouse was designated a City of Yellowknife Heritage Site in 1993.
Hudson's Bay Warehouse | Introduction
The original has been lost but an English translation was found among the papers of Samuel Pepys and now resides in the Bodleian Library. Its reliability as a historical source is contentious.
Pierre-Esprit Radisson | Working for the Hudson's Bay Company
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Hudson's Bay Company | Response by Hudson's Bay
Hudson's Bay Trading Company, L.P. was an American portfolio company for NRDC Equity Partners, a private equity company. Hudson's Bay Trading Company was founded in 2008. NRDC Equity Partners was founded by Robert Baker and Richard Baker of National Realty and Development Corp., and William Mack and Lee Neibart of AREA Property Partners. Richard Baker served as President CEO of NRDC Equity Partners. On January 23, 2012, The Financial Post reported that Baker had dissolved Hudson’s Bay Trading Co., and Toronto-based Hudson's Bay Company will now operate both The Bay and Lord & Taylor. This new entity will be run by The Bay CEO Bonnie Brooks.
Hudson's Bay Trading Company | Introduction
The Hudson's Bay Company was given monopoly over the area of land that would become known as Rupert's Land. From 1670 to 1675, Groseilliers and Radisson were employed by the Hudson's Bay Company, voyaging into Hudson Bay to establish trading posts, forts and exploring the area. Their activities were watched with interest by the French whose economy suffered from the arrival of English fur traders.
Médard des Groseilliers | Formation of the Hudson's Bay Company
In 1668, "Nonsuch" reached the bay and traded for beaver pelts, leading to the creation of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) which still bears the historic name. The HBC negotiated a trading monopoly from the English crown for the Hudson Bay watershed, called Rupert's Land. France contested this grant by sending several military expeditions to the region, but abandoned its claim in the Treaty of Utrecht (April 1713). During this period, the Hudson's Bay Company built several factories (forts and trading posts) along the coast at the mouth of the major rivers (such as Fort Severn, Ontario; York Factory, Churchill, Manitoba and the Prince of Wales Fort).
Hudson Bay | History
In October 2012, the HBC announced a $1.6 billion initial public offering (IPO); Baker planned to use the IPO to allow Canadian ownership to return to the company, and to help pay off debts with other partners. Additionally, the company also announced that it would re-brand The Bay department store chain as "Hudson's Bay".
Hudson's Bay Company | 2012 initial public offering
Between 1866 and 1878 he was in charge of the company's operations at Fort Yale (Yale), in the Kootenay district, and in the Cassiar and the Stikine mining districts, and he directed its coastal trade at Fort Simpson. The HBC promoted him to factor in 1872.
Joseph William McKay | Hudson's Bay Company
In 1928, the Hudson's Bay Company purchased a majority of the company's shares but these were re-acquired by Jobs fifteen years later. In 1945, Northatlantic Fisheries purchased sixty percent of Jobs' shares. Other Jobs plants were sold in the next two decades. The remaining Jobs plant in St. John's closed operations in 1967.
Job Brothers &amp; Co., Limited | Later years
Another factor was the findings of the Palliser Expedition of 1857 to 1860, led by Captain John Palliser. He surveyed the area of the prairies and wilderness from Lake Superior to the southern passes of the Rocky Mountains. Although he recommended against settlement of the region, the report sparked a debate. It ended the myth publicized by Hudson's Bay Company: that the Canadian West was unfit for agricultural settlement. In 1863, the International Financial Society bought controlling interest in the HBC, signalling a shift in the company's outlook: most of the new shareholders were less interested in the fur trade than in real estate speculation and economic development in the West.
Hudson's Bay Company | End of monopoly
On 24 January 2012, the "Financial Post" reported that Richard Baker (owner of NDRC and governor of Hudson's Bay Company) had dissolved Hudson's Bay Trading Company and that the HBC would now also operate the Lord & Taylor chain. At the time, the company was run by president Bonnie Brooks. Baker remained governor and CEO of the business, and Donald Watros stayed on as chief operating officer. In 2018, HBC sold the building that housed its flagship Lord & Taylor store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan to WeWork Property Advisors after pressure from Land & Buildings Investment Management. The deal also included the use of floors of certain HBC-owned department stores in New York, Toronto, Vancouver and Germany as WeWork's shared office workspaces.
Hudson's Bay Company | Lord & Taylor stores
In its trade with native peoples, Hudson's Bay Company exchanged wool blankets, called Hudson's Bay point blankets, for the beaver pelts trapped by aboriginal hunters. By 1700, point blankets accounted for more than 60 per cent of the trade. The number of indigo stripes (a.k.a. points) woven into the blankets identified its finished size. A long-held misconception is that the number of stripes was related to its value in beaver pelts.
Hudson's Bay Company | 18th century
A second petition was launched in 1835, which led to the government and the Hudson's Bay Company to finally cede cutting rights to a company from La Malbaie called the Société des Vingt et un.
La Baie | Exploration of Ha! Ha! Bay
This is a list of Hudson's Bay Company trading posts. For the fur trade in general see North American fur trade and Canadian canoe routes (early). For some groups of related posts see Fort-Rupert for James Bay. Ottawa River, Winnipeg River, Assiniboine River fur trade and Saskatchewan River fur trade.
List of Hudson's Bay Company trading posts | Introduction
After a successful trading expedition over the winter of 1668–69, "Nonsuch" returned to England on 9 October 1669 with the first cargo of fur resulting from trade in Hudson Bay. The bulk of the fur – worth £1,233 – was sold to Thomas Glover, one of London's most prominent furriers. This and subsequent purchases by Glover made it clear the fur trade in Hudson Bay was viable.
Hudson's Bay Company | 17th century
In 1674, a French Jesuit priest, Charles Albanel, was sent north into Hudson Bay. Captured by representatives of the Hudson's Bay Company, Albanel was sent to England as a prisoner. In England he convinced Groseilliers and Radisson to return to French service. Groseilliers traveled to France and spent the year before returning to New France in 1676. On 20 May 1682 the French created their own fur-trading company, called "La Compagnie de la Baie d’Hudson" or "Compagnie du Nord", given charter by the French government. The company was created to compete with the Hudson's Bay Company. Groseilliers joined the company and with Radisson, sailed north to the Hayes and Nelson Rivers to create a French trading post.
Médard des Groseilliers | Return to French service
In 1991, Hudson's Bay Company stopped selling fur. In 1997 the company reopened its fur salons, including a wider assortment of high-end designer furs. Fur salons included many exclusive fur designers, including Louis Féraud, Givenchy, Black Diamond Mink, and Grosvenor. On 16 July 2008, it was announced that Hudson's Bay Company had been purchased by the US firm NRDC Equity Partners, which owned Lord & Taylor and Fortunoff.
Hudson's Bay (department store) | Following renaming to The Bay
With the ending of the Nine Years' War in 1697, and the War of the Spanish Succession in 1713 with the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht, France had made substantial concessions. Among the treaty's many provisions, it required France to relinquish all claims to Great Britain on the Hudson Bay, which again became a British possession. (The Kingdom of Great Britain had been established following the union of Scotland and England in 1707). After the treaty, the HBC built Prince of Wales Fort, a stone star fort at the mouth of the nearby Churchill River.In 1782, during the American Revolutionary War, a French squadron under Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse captured and demolished York Factory and Prince of Wales Fort in support of the American rebels.
Hudson's Bay Company | 18th century
Although the HBC maintained a monopoly on the fur trade during the early to mid-19th century, there was competition from James Sinclair and Andrew McDermot (Dermott), independent traders in the Red River Colony. They shipped furs by the Red River Trails to Norman Kittson a buyer in the United States. In addition, Americans controlled the Maritime fur trade on the Northwest Coast until the 1830s. Throughout the 1820s and 1830s, the HBC controlled nearly all trading operations in the Pacific Northwest, based at the company headquarters at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River.Although claims to the region were by agreement in abeyance, commercial operating rights were nominally shared by the United States and Britain through the Anglo-American Convention of 1818, but company policy, enforced via Chief Factor John McLoughlin of the company's Columbia District, was to discourage U.S.
Hudson's Bay Company | Competition
In December 2003, Maple Leaf Heritage Investments, a Nova Scotia-based company created to acquire shares of Hudson's Bay Company, announced that it was considering making an offer to acquire all or some of the common shares of Hudson's Bay Company. Maple Leaf Heritage Investments is a subsidiary of B-Bay Inc. Its CEO and chairman is American businesswoman Anita Zucker, widow of Jerry Zucker. Zucker had previously been the head of the Polymer Group, which acquired another Canadian institution, Dominion Textile. On 26 January 2006, the HBC's board unanimously agreed to a bid of /share from Jerry Zucker, whose original bid was /share, ending a prolonged fight between the HBC and Zucker.
Hudson's Bay Company | 21st century
The diversification of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) became necessary with the decline of fur trade in the latter half of the 19th century, and the Deed of Surrender in which ownership of the North-Western Territory and Rupert's Land was transferred from HBC to the newly established country of Canada in 1870. The first Hudson's Bay Company store opened in 1881 in Winnipeg, Manitoba with an inventory consisting of dry goods, groceries, and hardware. HBC reorganized into fur trade, lands sales, and retail divisions in 1910; with the guidance of a director from the British department store Harrods, they began construction of full-line department stores in 1913.
Hudson's Bay (department store) | Early history
Hudson's Bay (French: la Baie d'Hudson), formerly and still colloquially The Bay (French: la Baie), is a Canadian department store chain. It is the main brand of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), the oldest company in North America. Founded on May 2, 1670, the Hudson's Bay Company opened its first department store in 1881 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The chain operated under the company name before being rebranded to The Bay in 1965. It historically operated exclusively in Western Canada until the acquisitions and conversions of department stores Morgan's, Freimans, Simpsons, Woodward's, coupled with the opening of new locations, positioned its presence nationwide in the second half of the 20th century.
Hudson's Bay (department store) | Introduction
Chronological list of Governors of the Hudson's Bay Company:
Hudson's Bay Company | Governors
The company had been previously trading on the Canadian Dealing Network.
01 Communique | Company history
It successively came under control of the Traite de Tadoussac (French period), King's Posts (English period), the North West Company (1802), and the Hudson's Bay Company (1821).
Lac-Ashuapmushuan, Quebec | Introduction
CEO Brendan Hoffman will leave Lord & Taylor and take over as CEO at the department store chain Bon Ton. Baker will remain governor and CEO of the business and Donald Watros will stay on as chief operating officer.
Hudson's Bay Trading Company | Introduction
In 1824, the Hudson's Bay Company appointed McLoughlin, already a Chief Factor, as Superintendent of the Columbia Department (roughly parallel to what Americans know as the Oregon Country), and Peter Skene Ogden was appointed to assist him. At the time, the region was under joint occupation of both the United States and Britain pursuant to the Treaty of 1818. Upon his arrival, McLoughlin determined that the headquarters of the company at Fort Astoria (now Astoria, Oregon), at the mouth of the Columbia River, was unfit. The York Factory Express trade route had evolved from an earlier express brigade used by the North West Company between Fort George, founded in 1811 by John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company) at the mouth of the Columbia River, to Fort William on Lake Superior.
John McLoughlin | Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company opened a trading post, #B380, at Amadjuak in 1921 and it remained in operation through 1933.
Amadjuak | History
In 1670, Radisson was back in England and on 2 May received a royal charter giving him and his partners the exclusive rights to the land surrounding Hudson Bay, ultimately founding the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). The next few years are filled with a number of highly profitable trips between England and the Bay region. The founding of the HBC reconfigured Radisson’s life, situating him henceforth in a European context where he had to struggle for survival among rival monarchs, competing courtiers, and the changing political and economic world in which they operated. King Charles II in his charter for the Hudson's Bay Company founded a proprietary colony named Rupert's Land declaring that the lands adjacent to Hudson's Bay or rivers flowing into Hudson's Bay now belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company.
Pierre-Esprit Radisson | Foundation of the Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company was founded in 1670. This company diverted furs away from Quebec and threatened further expansion into French territory. In 1682, the "Compagnie du Nord" was founded to compete with the English on the Bay. In 1686, the aggressive Governor General Denonville decided to drive out the English even though the two countries were at peace. Under the command of Pierre de Troyes, Chevalier de Troyes, d'Iberville his brothers Paul and Jacques led the Canadian woodsmen on a 1686 expedition to Hudson Bay. He played a heroic part in the capture of the fort at Moose Factory.
Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville | Hudson Bay expeditions
Hudson's Bay Company had gone public in November 2012 and was then listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Baker is the non-executive chairman of the Retail Opportunity Investments Corporation, a real estate investment trust listed on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange that focuses on retail properties located on the east and west coasts of the United States.
Richard A. Baker (businessman) | Career
The HBC is the only European trading company to have survived and outlived all its rivals.
Hudson's Bay Company | Rivals
He did so as a means of capturing the market, fearing the construction of a British fort on the same river and thus further dominance of the bay by the Hudson's Bay Company. He recruited Grosseiliers the following year to build a more permanent base. In the winter of 1683 he and Groseilliers went to France to deal with their legal problems. (They had seized two English parties in time of peace and paid Québec tax on furs from Hudson Bay from their Nelson River fort, which may not have been part of Canada.) Here they found themselves pawns in the events that led up to the Glorious Revolution.
Pierre-Esprit Radisson | In French service
The Royal Charter made the “Governor and Company ..., and their Successors, the true and absolute Lords and Proprietors, of the same Territory, Limits and Places aforesaid, and of all other the Premisses ["sic"]", and granted them the authority “to erect and build such Castles, Fortifications, Forts, Garrisons, Colonies or Plantations, Towns or Villages, in any Parts or Places within the Limits and Bounds granted before in these Presents, unto the said Governor and Company, as they in their Discretion shall think fit and requisite". Following merger with the North West Company in 1821, the Hudson’s Bay Company's monopoly privileges and licence were extended to trade over the North-Western Territory.
Rupert's Land | Hudson's Bay Company's claim of ownership
Médard Chouart des Groseilliers (1618–1696) was a French explorer and fur trader in Canada. He is often paired with his brother-in-law Pierre-Esprit Radisson, who was about 20 years younger. The pair worked together in fur trading and exploration. Their decision to enter British service led to the foundation of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1670. This company established trading posts and extensive relations with the First Nations in western Canada. It was highly influential in making the region amenable to British colonization. Radisson, with Groseiliers, also mapped many of the Great Lakes and trading routes used by settlers in the early 19th century.
Médard des Groseilliers | Introduction
In 1846, the United States acquired full authority south of the 49th parallel; the most settled areas of the Oregon Country were south of the Columbia River in what is now Oregon.McLoughlin, who had once turned away would-be settlers as company director, then welcomed them from his general store at Oregon City. He was later proclaimed the "Father of Oregon". The company retains no presence today in the portion of the Pacific Northwest governed by the United States.
Hudson's Bay Company | Competition
Officers in charge of individual trading posts had much responsibility because they were directly in charge of enforcing the policies made by the governor and committee (the board) of the company. One of these policies was the price of particular furs and trade goods.These prices were called the Official and Comparative Standards. Made-Beaver, the quality measurement of the pelt, was the means of exchange used by Hudson's Bay Company to define the Official and Comparative Standards. Because the governor was stationed in London, England, they needed to have reliable officers managing the trade posts halfway around the world. Because the fur trade was a very dynamic market, HBC needed to have some form of flexibility when dealing with prices and traders.
Hudson's Bay Company | Corporate hierarchy
Between 1820 and 1870, the HBC issued its own paper money. The notes, denominated in pounds sterling, were printed in London and issued at the York Factory, Fort Garry and the Red River Colony. For forty or so years beginning in 1870, the company employed paddle wheel steamships on the rivers of the prairies.
Hudson's Bay Company | Hudson's Bay Company money
It is now considered part of the CF-owned Toronto Eaton Centre, although a skybridge had already been connecting the adjacent properties for convenience since the 1970s.
Hudson's Bay Queen Street | Introduction
In 1800 this property was taken over by the XY Company, followed by the North West Company in 1804, and then the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1821, when these two companies merged. The HBC operated a small trading post, which closed in 1837.
Chats Falls | History
They also operated a store in what were then known as the Sandwich Islands (Hawai'i), engaging in merchant shipping to the islands between 1828 and 1859.
Hudson's Bay Company | North West Company: violent competition and merger
Hudson's Bay is a 1941 American historical drama film directed by Irving Pichel and starring Paul Muni, Gene Tierney, Laird Cregar and Vincent Price. Produced by 20th Century Fox, the film is about a pair of French-Canadian explorers whose findings lead to the formation of the Hudson's Bay Company. In Canada, the film was heavily promoted by the Hudson's Bay Company through its retail stores.
Hudson's Bay (film) | Introduction
The Hudson's Bay Company had a technical monopoly of the beaver trade within the drainage basin of Hudson Bay while the Compagnie d'Occident was given a monopoly of the beaver trade farther south. The English organized their trade on strictly hierarchical lines while the French used licenses to lease the use of their posts. This meant that the French incentivized the extension of trade, and French traders did indeed infiltrate much of the Great Lakes region. The French established posts on Lake Winnipeg, Lac des Praires and Lake Nipigon which represented a serious threat to flow of furs to the York Factory.
North American fur trade | Indigenous Peoples' response to French–English competition
Henry Morgan & Company (colloquially Morgan's) was a Canadian department store chain founded by Henry Morgan in 1845. The first store was located in Montreal, and expanded to include 11 stores in Ontario and Quebec before being bought by Hudson's Bay Company in 1960. The stores in Ontario were converted to Hudson's Bay Company stores that year and renamed The Bay in 1965; the remaining Morgan's stores in Quebec were renamed La Baie in 1972. The flagship store was located in the Henry Morgan Building in Downtown Montreal, and remains a flagship property of the Hudson's Bay Company.
Morgan's | Introduction
The South Carolina billionaire financier was a longtime HBC minority shareholder. In a 9 March 2006 press release, the HBC announced that Zucker would replace Yves Fortier as governor and George Heller as CEO, becoming the first US citizen to lead the company. After Jerry Zucker's death, the board named his widow, Anita Zucker, as HBC Governor and HBC Deputy-Governor Rob Johnston as CEO. On 16 July 2008, the company was sold to NRDC Equity Partners, a private equity firm based in Purchase, New York, which already owned Lord & Taylor, the oldest luxury department store chain in the United States.
Hudson's Bay Company | 21st century
The Thomson family also owned a controlling stake in the Hudson's Bay Company from 1979 to 1997. The Thomson media empire added "The Globe and Mail" in Toronto to "The Times" and "Sunday Times" in Britain and "The Jerusalem Post" in Israel. Under Thomson, the corporation sold its North Sea oil holdings and sold "The Times" to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and the Jerusalem Post to Conrad Black's Hollinger Inc. The "Globe and Mail" was combined with BCE's cable and television assets (including CTV and The Sports Network) to form Bell Globemedia, controlled by BCE with Thomson as a minority shareholder.
Kenneth Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet | Business owner
The Society floated £2 million in public shares on non-ceded land held ostensibly by the Hudson's Bay Company as an asset and leveraged this asset for collateral for these funds. These funds allowed the Society the financial means to weather the financial collapse of 1866 which destroyed many competitors and invest in railways in North America.
Hudson's Bay Company | End of monopoly
"Eaglet" was caught in a storm, was damaged and forced to return to England. "Nonsuch" made it to Hudson Bay and continued south, into James Bay. "Nonsuch" reached the mouth of the Rupert River which was named after their benefactor. They landed near what is now the town of Waskaganish, Quebec, where they built a fort and wintered there. The expedition returned to England in 1669 with a rich cargo of furs. The haul of furs impressed King Charles and led Prince Rupert and his fellow investors to create the "Company of Adventurers of England Trading into Hudsons Bay", also known as the Hudson's Bay Company, on 2 May 1670.
Médard des Groseilliers | Formation of the Hudson's Bay Company
The Ontario Paper Company, owned by Colonel Robert R. McCormick, which later became the Quebec North Shore Paper Co., needed paper to supply the Chicago Tribune and the New York Daily News, which were also owned by McCormick.
Franquelin, Quebec | Introduction
In 1972, the company acquired the four-store Shop-Rite chain of catalogue stores. The chain was quickly expanded to 65 stores in Ontario, but closed in 1982 due to declining sales. In these stores, little merchandise was displayed; customers made their selections from catalogues, and staff would retrieve the merchandise from storerooms. The HBC also acquired Freimans department stores in Ottawa and converted them to The Bay.
Hudson's Bay Company | Retail expansion
They exchanged their goods at Grand Portage on Lake Superior and returned before the rivers froze five months later. To save the cost of hauling food from Montreal Métis around Winnipeg began the large-scale production of pemmican. The Hudson Bay trade was diverted southwest to the edge of the prairie where pemmican was picked up to feed the voyageurs on their journey northwest to the Athabasca country. Competition from the Nor'Westers forced the Hudson's Bay Company to build posts in the interior. The two companies competed for a while and, in 1821, merged. Management was taken over by the capital-rich HBC, but trading methods were those of the Montreal-based Nor'Westers.
Voyageurs | British era
Since Henry Hudson had claimed Hudson Bay, and the surrounding lands for England in 1611, English colonists had begun expanding their boundaries across what is now the Canadian north beyond the French-held territory of New France. In 1670, King Charles II of England issued a charter to Prince Rupert and "the Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson Bay" for an English monopoly in harvesting furs in Rupert's Land, a portion of the land draining into Hudson Bay. This is the start of the Hudson's Bay Company, ironically aided by French "coureurs des bois", Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard des Groseilliers, frustrated with French license rules.
New France | Formal entry of England in New France area fur trade
The Hudson's Bay Company's records provide the original written history of the HBC since its inception in 1670 by Prince Rupert and others. Henry Hudson was the first European to explore and map the shores of the great bay. The first Hudson's Bay Company trading forts were built along the southern shores of Hudson Bay to provide the shortest trade route to Europe from the middle of North America. Rupert's Land consisted of the vast watershed of rivers that drained into Hudson Bay which gave access to the far western and central parts of North America. The abundance of archival documents provide the original written history of the fur trade, North American exploration and mapping, native peoples, treaty making, and the original development of the Nation of Canada.
Archives of Manitoba | Hudson's Bay Company Archives
Freiman's son, Lawrence (who wrote a book about the store), the company was acquired by Hudson's Bay Company in 1972 and rebranded to The Bay in 1973. The former Freimans store still operates as a retail store of The Bay, and an adjoining arcade linking Rideau Street to the Byward Market is named the Freiman Mall in honour of the longtime Ottawa retailer. In addition, the laneway around the north side of the nearby National Arts Centre which provides access to the box office has been named Lawrence Freiman Lane.
Freimans | Introduction
In January 2016, HBC announced it would expand deeper into digital space with the acquisition of an online flash sales site, the Gilt Groupe, for US$250 million. In June 2018, HBC announced it would sell Gilt Groupe to online fashion store Rue La La for an undisclosed sum.
Hudson's Bay Company | Gilt Groupe
In 1670, Charles II incorporated by royal charter the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), granting it a monopoly on the fur trade in the area known as Rupert's Land. Forts and trading posts established by the HBC were frequently the subject of attacks by the French.
British colonization of the Americas | Hudson's Bay Company
In 1960, the company acquired Morgan's allowing it to expand into Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton, and Ottawa. In 1965, HBC rebranded its department stores as The Bay. The Morgan's logo was changed to match the new visual identity. By 1972 the last of the former Morgan's stores had been rebranded to Bay stores. In 1970, on the company's 300th anniversary, as a result of punishing new British tax laws, the company relocated to Canada, and was rechartered as a Canadian business corporation under Canadian law, Head Office functions were transferred from London to Winnipeg. By 1974, as the company expanded into eastern Canada, head office functions were moved to Toronto.
Hudson's Bay Company | Retail expansion
After the French landed in Quebec in 1608, spread out and built a fur trade empire in the St. Lawrence basin. The French competed with the Dutch (from 1614) and English (1664) in New York and the English in Hudson Bay (1670). Unlike the French who travelled into the northern interior and traded with First Nations in their camps and villages, the English made bases at trading posts on Hudson Bay, inviting the indigenous people to trade. After 1731, pushed trade west beyond Lake Winnipeg. After the British conquest of New France in 1763 (and the defeat of France in Europe), the management of the fur trading posts was taken over by English-speakers.
North West Company | Before the Company
By this the North West Company name disappeared after more than 40 years of operations. At the time of the merger, the amalgamated company consisted of 97 trading posts that had belonged to the North West Company and 76 that belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company. When the competition between both companies came to an end, new board of directors wanted two field governors to oversee the newly defined territory, and George Simpson was appointed to the Northern Department. George Simpson (1787–1860), the Hudson's Bay Company Governor-in-Chief of Rupert's Land, who became the Canadian head of the northern division of the greatly enlarged business, made his headquarters in the Montreal suburb of Lachine.
North West Company | Forced merger
In 1839 the RAC-HBC Agreement was signed, giving the Hudson's Bay Company a lease of the southeastern sector of what is now the Alaska Panhandle, as far north as 56° 30' north latitude.
Maritime fur trade | Russian-American Company
The Guillaume Sayer Trial in 1849 contributed to the end of the HBC monopoly. Sayer, a Métis trapper and trader, was accused of illegal trading in furs. The Court of Assiniboia brought Sayer to trial, before a jury of HBC officials and supporters. During the trial, a crowd of armed Métis men led by Louis Riel, Sr. gathered outside the courtroom. Although Sayer was found guilty of illegal trade, having evaded the HBC monopoly, Judge Adam Thom did not levy a fine or punishment. Some accounts attributed that to the intimidating armed crowd gathered outside the courthouse. With the cry, "Le commerce est libre! Le commerce est libre!" ("Trade is free! Trade is free!"), the Métis loosened the HBC's previous control of the courts, which had enforced their monopoly on the settlers of Red River.
Hudson's Bay Company | End of monopoly
The HBC authorized and funded Henday to lead explorations into the interior of Rupert's Land, using York Factory as his base. On June 26, 1754, he set out with a group of Cree Indians on foot to travel from York Factory to present-day Red Deer, Alberta. It is documented they passed the French Fort Paskoya where he may have met La Corne, the western commander.
Anthony Henday | Hudson's Bay Company
The living was hardly better and he discovered that the little trade he received came at the expense of Fort Chimo's; he abandoned it the next year and returned to Finlayson.
Erland Erlandson | With the Hudson's Bay Company
Competition caused spurs of violence in the region over the control of economic resources, escalating with the arrival of Hudson's Bay Company. The late beginnings of Hudson's Bay Company in the North-Western Territory was due to a shortage of available voyageurs and the domination of the North West Company. It was not until 1791 a post was established and was operational year-round in 1799. The North West Company continued to rise to power up until the point of their merger with the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821.
Île-à-la-Crosse | Early trading
Hudson's Bay Queen Street (formerly the Simpson's Department Store) is a building complex on the southwest corner of Yonge Street and Queen Street West in Downtown Toronto. It operated as the flagship store of the Simpsons department store chain from 1895–1991. The building became the area flagship store of its successor The Bay in 1991 (rebranded to Hudson's Bay in 2013), and was retrofitted to house the first Saks Fifth Avenue in Canada in 2016. It is also the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company, which owns both chains. Hudson's Bay Company sold the complex to Cadillac Fairview in 2014, and maintains a leaseback agreement with the company through at least 2039.
Hudson's Bay Queen Street | Introduction
Group, who also owns the U.S. Dixon Ticonderoga Company.
Nerchau | History and Economy
In 1679, French explorer Pierre-Esprit Radisson and financier Charles Aubert de La Chesnaye met in Paris, and laid the foundations for the establishment of a fur trading company they called the Compagnie du Nord. Its objective was to engage in fur trade in northern North America, where the English Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) had realized significant profits in that business. The Compagnie's first major expedition in 1682 successfully seized York Factory. After the Compagnie's profits were virtually wiped out by taxes imposed by authorities in New France, Radisson entered service with the HBC, and led several profitable shipping expeditions to Hudson Bay, including recovering for the company York Factory and the furs taken there.
Hudson Bay expedition (1686) | Background
The company's inability to trade with them for two seasons drove many survivors to develop trading relationships with Montreal. Neither Hearne nor Marten was sanctioned by the company for surrendering; both returned to their posts the following year. When the French took Prince of Wales Fort, they found Samuel Hearne's journal, which La Pérouse claimed as a prize. The journal contained Hearne's accounts of his explorations of the northern reaches of North America, and Hearne pleaded with La Pérouse for its return. The request was granted on condition that the journal be published. Whether Hearne had intended to publish it anyway is unclear, but by 1792, the year of Hearne's death, he had prepared a manuscript and submitted it for publication.
Hudson Bay expedition | Aftermath
From 1779 to 1821 two British fur trading companies, the Montreal-based North West Company (NWC) and the London-based Hudson's Bay Company, competed for control of the fur trade of what later became Western Canada. The struggle, which eventually reached the point of armed battles such as the 1816 Battle of Seven Oaks, was mostly over control of Rupert's Land, east of the Continental Divide. Around the turn of the 19th century the NWC expanded its operations westward, across the Rocky Mountains into the mostly unexplored Pacific Northwest. By the 1810s the NWC had established new fur trading operations west of the Rockies, in New Caledonia and the Columbia District.
Maritime fur trade | Hudson's Bay Company
In early 2017, the Hudson's Bay Company made an overture to Macy's for a potential takeover of the struggling department store. Later, HBC also considered a purchase of the struggling Neiman Marcus Group Inc. It did not proceed with either deal.
Hudson's Bay Company | Considered purchases
The time he took on these observations, about 3 hours of calculation each, indicates that he understood the power of averages.
David Thompson (explorer) | Hudson's Bay Company (HBC)
Four years later, it was re-opened on the same site by fur traders Alexander Henry the elder and Jean Baptiste Cadotte. The route from James Bay was explored by Edward Jarvis (1775) and Philip Turnor (1781). In 1783, it was taken over by the North West Company, based in Montreal. In 1797, the Hudson's Bay Company built a rival post on the north bank.
Wawa, Ontario | Fur trade days
In 1918, Isaac Cohen founded Hudson County News in Bayonne, New Jersey. In 1947, under the leadership of Robert B. Cohen, Hudson County News began delivering magazines in Hudson County, New Jersey. In the 1980s Cohen took over a bankrupt newsstand operator the company was supplying at Newark Airport. In 1987, he set up the first branded Hudson News store in LaGuardia Airport. In 2008, private equity firm Advent International acquired the Hudson Group, and merged Swiss duty-free retailer Dufry of Basel, Switzerland with the Hudson Group. Under the terms, Hudson Group became a wholly owned subsidiary of Dufry.
Hudson Group | History
This "modernization program" resulted the "original six" department stores in Calgary and Edmonton in Alberta; Vancouver and Victoria in British Columbia; Winnipeg in Manitoba; and Saskatoon in Saskatchewan. Hudson's Bay Company entered the provinces of Ontario and Quebec with its acquisition of the Montreal-based Morgan's department store chain in 1960; that year, only the Morgan's stores in Ontario were converted to Hudson's Bay Company stores.
Hudson's Bay (department store) | Early history
In an attempt to break the French monopoly the English began trading through Hudson Bay and the Hudson's Bay Company built an elaborate network of trading posts and forts.
Economic history of Canada | Fur trade
The Hudson's Bay Company Department Store is an historic building in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. It is currently being used as a public market space.
Hudson's Bay Company Department Store | Introduction
The company co-founded Hudson's Bay Oil and Gas Company (HBOG) in 1926 with Marland Oil Company (which merged with Conoco in 1929). HBOG expanded during the 1940s and 1950s, and in 1960 began shipping Canadian crude through a new link to the Glacier pipeline and on to the refinery in Billings, Montana. The company became the sixth-largest Canadian oil producer in 1967. In 1973, HBOG acquired a 35 per cent stake in Siebens Oil and Gas, and, in 1979, it divested that interest. In 1980, it bought a controlling interest in Roxy Petroleum. In the 1980s, sales and oil prices slipped, while debt from acquisitions piled up which led to Hudson's Bay Company selling its 52.9 per cent stake in HBOG to Dome Petroleum in 1981.
Hudson's Bay Company | Oil and gas operations
The current company flag is based on the governor's standard bearing the company's coat of arms (in gold on white background), in use since 1779.
Flag of the Hudson's Bay Company | History
At the end of the war, the French controlled all but one of the company's outposts.
Hudson Bay expedition (1686) | Introduction
The Rupert's Land Act 1868 of the United Kingdom Parliament authorized the sale of Rupert's Land to Canada with the understanding that Rupert's Land' shall include the whole of the Lands and Territories held or claimed to be held by the" Hudson's Bay Company. The prevailing attitude of the time was that Rupert’s Land was owned by the Hudson’s Bay Company because "From the beginning to the end, the [Hudson’s Bay Company] had always claimed up to the parallel 49", and argued that the Royal Charter and various Acts of Parliament granted them "all the regions under British dominion watered by streams flowing into Hudson Bay".
Rupert's Land | Hudson's Bay Company's claim of ownership
Both ships had also suffered damage due to cold weather and battering by ice floes. Fleuriot de Langle received a brevet promotion to "capitaine de vaisseau" upon his arrival in Brest in late October. According to the company, the goods taken at Prince of Wales alone were worth more than £14,000, and La Pérouse's raid so damaged the company finances that it paid no dividends until 1786. When peace finally came with the 1783 Treaty of Paris, the French agreed to compensate the company for its losses. The raid did permanent damage to the company's trading relationships. The Chipewyans who traded with the company suffered severely due to the company's inability to provision them and to an ongoing smallpox epidemic that was ravaging Indian populations throughout North America; by some estimates the Chipewyans lost half their population.
Hudson Bay expedition | Aftermath
The Henry Morgan Building () is home to the Hudson's Bay Company flagship store in Montreal, at 585 Saint Catherine Street West in downtown Montreal. It is named for Scottish-born Montreal retailer Henry Morgan.
Henry Morgan Building | Introduction
After the North West Company was merged with the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821 Thomas McKay became an HBC employee, despite having fought the company in the Red River Colony war. In 1824 Chief Factor John McLoughlin was appointed superintendent of the Columbia Department. He and his family moved that year to Fort George (Astoria) and then, once it was built, Fort Vancouver, the new headquarters of the HBC Columbia Department. In 1811 McLoughlin had married Marguerite Wadin, widow of Alexander MacKay and mother of Thomas McKay. Thus in 1824 Thomas's mother and stepfather moved across the continent to the very place Thomas was living.
Thomas McKay (fur trader) | Hudson's Bay Company
Hodgkin then took up the behaviour of the Company with Benjamin Harrison, Treasurer of Guy's, disastrously mixing his professional life with his activism: Harrison was concerned in the management of the Company as Deputy Chairman, and was related by marriage to John Henry Pelly, the Chairman, who had crossed swords with King at parliamentary hearings. Hodgkin's concerns over the indigenous peoples in the Hudson's Bay Company territory in western Canada continued. They were pursued both by correspondence with Sir George Simpson, and in the pages of the "Intelligencer" of the Aborigines Protection Society.
Thomas Hodgkin | Hudson's Bay Company
With the signing of the Treaty of Paris (1763) Labrador was passed from the French to the British. With the arrival of the British came the Hudson's Bay Company in 1836 who would enjoy a trade monopoly over central Labrador's furs for more than 100 years. The newest of the Hudson's Bay trading posts was constructed in 1923 and still remains as museum run and maintained by the Labrador Heritage Society.
North West River | Hudson's Bay Company
Groseilliers and Radisson traveled to Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They organized another expedition into Hudson Bay in 1663, but it was turned back by the ice. At Boston in 1665 they met Sir George Cartwright, who told them to travel to England to gain support. Captured by Dutch privateers on the voyage, the French men were put ashore in Spain. Reaching England, they were presented to King Charles II and became associated with Prince Rupert. Eventually Prince Rupert chartered two vessels for Radisson and Groseilliers. In 1668 two ships left England for Hudson Bay: under the command of Zachariah Gillam with Groseilliers as his second and "Eaglet" with William Stannard as captain and Radisson as his second.
Médard des Groseilliers | Formation of the Hudson's Bay Company
In 2016, Stockbridge sold part of Yes! to GIC Private Limited and the Pennsylvania Public School Employees' Retirement System (PSERS). Stockbridge in addition owns Bay Meadows, a master planned community in San Mateo, California that was formerly the site of Bay Meadows Racetrack. The company owns The Burbank Studios in Burbank, California, formerly NBC's NBC Studios in a joint venture with M. David Paul & Associates. The firm formerly owned 140 New Montgomery known as the Pac Bell Building in San Francisco from 2007 until April 2016. It also formerly owned the SLS Las Vegas from October 2015 until April 2018.
Stockbridge Capital Group | Introduction
Normally, the trip to York Factory was made by the Cree and Ojibwe men while their womenfolk stayed behind in their villages. Until 1774, the Hudson's Bay Company was content to operate its posts on the shores of Hudson's Bay, and only competition from the rival North West Company based in Montreal forced the Hudson's Bay Company to assert its claim to Rupert's Land. By contrast, the absence of waterways flowing into Hudson's Bay (the major river in the subarctic, the Mackenzie, flows into the Arctic Ocean) forced the Northern Athabaskan peoples to travel by foot with the women as baggage carriers.
North American fur trade | Delivery of goods by native tribes