As an Indigenous person from northern Ontario … GOOD!
My family traded with the Hudson Bay Company for generations in furs from the north. I remember my dad trading furs just before the whole industry collapsed in the 70s. My parents barely made a living from the furs yet they had to negotiate and fight and argue with every shipment they gave. Those store managers were just as terrible as the ones you read in history books.
Not to mention they were the only store operating in many native communities in the north … so with the monopoly in a community, they had the freedom to set the price for anything and everything and make way more profit than they should have.
I celebrate the demise of the HBC … it’s historically a terrible company for native people.
The Bay is going out of business because of their insistence on remaining a “department store”, high prices, and lack of adoption for any new technology.
Their point of sale was still running on DOS last I checked, and the shopping experience felt like it was straight out of the 90s.
Worth noting that the hedge fund is a property investment company, not a business investment company. They’re in it for the real estate and don’t care at all about the business.
And since the HBC divided up BNA with Canada at confederation, they do still have a LOT of property.
Very much this. At the same time, it’s clear from the article they wouldn’t let management manage issues so the Bay was cooked from the onset
Start a new company, maybe a coop, that sells canadian made goods
I would LOVE to see HBC reborn as a costco style membership club that sells good quality Canadian products at reasonable prices, and is incentivized by the membership system to focus on providing customer satisfaction not short-term profits.
I’ve given up Costco for the boycott, but it hurts so much buying overpriced stuff from the grocery cartels. Imagine if a reborn HBC could fill that role?
