Canada’s iconic Hudson Bay brand to survive after sale to competitor

The Hudson Bay Company – Canada’s oldest corporation – will sell its brand to another iconic national retailer, Canadian Tire.

The department store chain, which has applied for creditor protection, will sell its intellectual property for C$30m ($21.5m, £16.2m).

The move comes after the company, also known as HBC, liquidated all its stores, citing a shifting retail landscape post-pandemic and US tariffs as insurmountable challenges.

Canadian Tire is another major domestic retailer, with over 1,700 shops across the country that sell everything from sporting goods to hardware.

At stake is a brand that is over 350 years old. Founded in 1670, HBC was granted a royal charter to control trade in parts of Canada. The company began trading British-made wool “point” blankets emblazoned with stripes in blue, red, green and yellow.

It then morphed into a mid- and upper-range department store with key properties in several historic downtown buildings in cities across the country.

It also began branding a plethora of products with those same point-blanket stripes, from teddy bears to ceramics.

When it announced it would be closing down, demand for Hudson’s striped products soared, with blankets especially selling for thousands on eBay. The resurgence of interest in the company, while it was on its last breath, sparked some hope that the brand may be able to make a comeback.

The sale of its intellectual property – which includes in-house brands like Gluckstein and Distinctly Home – to Canadian Tire will ensure that the brand lives on, even if the physical shops do not.