Hudson's Bay Company

[soundmuseum]

Beauty Underground, including The Ten Spot, is now closed and is clearing out of its concourse level location.

Some of the brands that were being sold in the Beauty Underground area have been relocated up to the 2nd floor near the bridge to Eaton Centre. Others have moved to the ground floor beauty sections. The Ten Spot is apparently going to re-open on the ground floor.

Because of WeWork taking over the upper floors of Hudson's Bay, the Housewares and Bedding sections are moving back (again!) down to the basement, which is now under construction. So much for all the renovation/relocation they did up on the 6th and 7th floors!

I'm still unsure what's going to happen with the Kleinfeld Bridal Boutique with WeWork moving in.

The Squish candy shop has been relocated to the area beside the escalators, across from the Lindt chocolate and Nespresso boutiques, where they used to have the Christmas merchandise.

 

[jje1000]

Hudson’s Bay CEO says ‘no sacred cows’ as retailer looks to shake up business

Following a poorly executed turnaround plan, Hudson’s Bay Co. is now looking at shaking up its business under a new leader in a bid to perk up disappointing financial results.

“There are no sacred cows,” Helena Foulkes, who took over as HBC’s chief executive officer six weeks ago, said on Wednesday. “We’re looking at every part of the business to improve performance and everything is on the table.”

HBC has suffered from a painful industry-wide shift to a more digital business but also from its own missteps, both in its e-commerce and physical stores. It stumbled in trying to improve its critical online operations as well as its discount - or “off-price” - segment, which includes Saks OFF 5th, despite the fact that off-price is one of the few growing sectors in retailing.

Now its massive cost cutting and staff reduction efforts -- aimed at generating $350 million of annual savings – have gone awry, forcing the already-challenged retailer to “take a step backwards,” Ms. Foulkes said.

Richard Baker, HBC’s executive chairman and a U.S. real estate expert, has been working on mining value from the retailer’s significant real estate holdings as he grapples with shifting consumer shopping trends that favour e-commerce and off-price destinations and increasingly turn away from department stores.
[...]
Mr. Baker said: “While we are not pleased with our recent performance, we continue to capitalize on the value of our real estate portfolio and are taking action to improve our operating results.”

Sales at existing stores in Hudson’s Bay’s digital division, including its troubled Gilt online division, rose 2.8 per cent in the three months ended Feb. 3. Those same-store sales in its European division, which includes Kaufhof, Germany’s largest retail chain, and new stores in the Netherlands, fell 3.4 per cent. They also fell across all other divisions except Saks Fifth Avenue, where they rose 2.1 per cent. Overall same-store sale dropped 2.4 per cent.

In all of fiscal 2017, HBC reported a loss of $581-million, or $3.04 a share compared with $516-million, or $2.83 in the previous year. Retail sales slipped to $14.35-billion from $14.45-billion.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/bus...-first-profit-in-eight-quarters-but-misses-2/

HBC profit misses estimates in Q4, same-store sales fall 2.4%

https://www.bnn.ca/hbc-not-pleased-as-fourth-quarter-earnings-miss-estimates-1.1040378

 

[syn]

What on earth sold HBC on the idea that expanding into the Netherlands - or Europe at all - was a remotely good idea?! Even as someone without much knowledge about retailing, that strikes me as a risky move with not much good to come of it even in a best-case scenario. I'm going to be really disappointed if we lose a 300-something-year-old retailer that also had so much potential to be a great retailer.

Apparently HBC and the Canadian 'brand' in general. With a national retailer going out of business, there was an opportunity for them to enter the market.

 

[Benito]

Housewares has moved to the basement of the HBC at Yonge and Queen. I really preferred the top level location, it was so bright with windows.

 

[PinkLucy]

Higher traffic area for a popular department.

 

[Northern Light]

Higher traffic area for a popular department.

Not the reason for the move though.

At least to my understanding this is space being turned over to 'We Work'

 

[PinkLucy]

I always liked it better in the basement; maybe not as bright as up top, but more convenient.

 

[Skeezix]

I assume sales might be better too. The seventh floor was lovely, but never seemed all that busy to me.

 

[syn]

I thought they did a great job with the 7th floor, but I agree - never seemed that busy.

If they're giving over some floors to We Work, what are they cutting from the store?

 

[Northern Light]

News from a week ago. HBC closing all Home Outfitter's locations.

HBC shutting all 37 Home Outfitters stores across Canada | CBC News

Hudson's Bay Co. announced Thursday it will close its housewares chain Home Outfitters in Canada.

www.cbc.ca

To me, there was the basis of a workable concept there........but HBC as is so often the case wasn't able to execute properly.

The Location on Eglinton, near Warden was often empty and had taken to closing at six several days per week.

I found there were rarely staff around; pricing information was often missing or incomplete, staff when you found them often didn't know their product, and for a 'home store' it had too many holes in its inventory.

They also chose mediocre locations.

Too bad. The segment could use more quality players.

 

[Jonny5]

We all know how this goes.

Rhone Capital LLC, WeWork Property Advisors, Hanover Investments (Luxembourg) SA and Abrams Capital Management LP. have made an offer to buyout the whole of HBC for $9.45/share and take the company private.

They already hold a combined 57% of the shares. So get ready for a PE gutting of all actual valuable assets (real estate,) and the eventual debt riddled husk that's left of The Bay to be shut down sometime in, oh, about four years. I wonder who will be the new tenant at the Queen Street store? Perhaps Ford or the new OMB will simply approve demolishing it and building a generic 50 floor condo called "The Bay."

 

[innsertnamehere]

We all know how this goes.



They already hold a combined 57% of the shares. So get ready for a PE gutting of all actual valuable assets (real estate,) and the eventual debt riddled husk that's left of The Bay to be shut down sometime in, oh, about four years. I wonder who will be the new tenant at the Queen Street store? Perhaps Ford or the new OMB will simply approve demolishing it and building a generic 50 floor condo called "The Bay."

I believe the Bay already sold their Queen Street store a while ago to Cadillac Fairview.

 

[Northern Light]

We all know how this goes.



They already hold a combined 57% of the shares. So get ready for a PE gutting of all actual valuable assets (real estate,) and the eventual debt riddled husk that's left of The Bay to be shut down sometime in, oh, about four years. I wonder who will be the new tenant at the Queen Street store? Perhaps Ford or the new OMB will simply approve demolishing it and building a generic 50 floor condo called "The Bay."

I certainly hope for a better fate than that.

The core asset isn't losing much money (and makes some depending on the quarter).

It's the Lord and Taylor division and Off 5th that are real drains on the company.

Saks and HBC do both need to trim their footprint; though I disagree w/the way Hudson's Bay is tackling it.

I think the focus should be on the flagship stores which should be as big as they've ever been.

They are the showroom for the online product; the place to be inspired or to try new things or to build a personal relationship with a professional shopper, a tailor, the people setting up a bridal registry etc.

They are the experience around which your brand is built.

By contrast most of the smaller market/suburban stores will lose money or turn ever smaller profits in an online world.

The GTA can support, maybe, 5 or 6 flagship Hudson's Bay stores.

I would retain:

Queen
Yorkdale
Square One
STC

I'm on the bubble about:
Sherway
Oshawa
Burlington
Fairview
Bramalea

I would close:
Bloor Street (but move Sak's there)
Pickering
Eglinton Square
Centrepoint
Hillcrest
Woodbine
Erin Mills
Upper Canada
Burlington Mapleview
Oakville

I would open:
Downtown Hamilton. (it's starting to happen here, I could see an experiential store as a flagship for the downtown and broader Hamilton area; if this were done, I would close the other Burlington store)
North York City Centre (the density, transit and highway make this location very workable, you just need the right development to bring it to life)

GTA overall

Keep up to 7
Open up to 2
Close 10

But those remaining stores should be:

-3 floors minimum
-Feel grand inside and out
-Feature a restaurant
-Feature a large HBC signature assortment (including canoes)
-More fashion brand exclusives
- Furniture, Linens and housewares.

Queen Street

- Move Sak's and Wework out
- Give the store the full 9 floors (basement + 8) over 1.2M sq ft
- Endeavour to have it carry everything that is offered online and some in-store exclusives.
- Beef us service.
- Don't run the store to make money (that's a nice bonus), run it to drive traffic to your website.

*****

Sak's

Close:

Queen
Sherway

Open
Bloor Street (former Bay location, gutted w/new facade)
Yorkdale

Again, up the wow factor.

Nothing should be generic about Sak's (but sadly too much is)

 

[innsertnamehere]

Why are you on the verge of keeping Burlington but want to close Burlington Mapleview? Mapleview is IIRC the 6th or 7th best performing mall in the GTA and is miles ahead of the Burlington Centre which is more of a local mall.. I imagine that neither Mapleview or Burlington Centre are profitable right now as they split the same market, but if you close Burlington Centre I would imagine that Mapleview would do quite well.

My closure list would probably be:

Burlington Centre
Bloor Street (but move Sak's there)
Eglinton Square
Centrepoint
Woodbine
Oakville

At this point some of those stores must just be shedding money, like Woodbine and Eglinton Square. They are all in subprime locations or malls either too small to drive enough traffic (Oakville) or too low end to justify it (Woodbine).

Hillcrest and Pickering sit on the line for me, could go either way. Hillcrest isn't really a regional shopping centre but is newly (and beautifully) renovated and is a fairly high end mall, Pickering has a half decent service area and seems to be moving a bit upmarket in the next few years..

All the other stores sit in locations that I imagine they could turn into profitable stores, even if they aren't right now. Many need some money to bring them to that state though.

I would probably do a two tier model, with a handful of "showcase" stores in key locations (Eaton Centre, Sherway, Yorkdale, STC, Maybe Oshawa, Upper Canada, and Lime Ridge) offering a full range of services with Eaton Centre being the classical super flaship, then a more middle scale store that offers more limited selection but in the more local malls that still provides a presence.

 

[Northern Light]

Why are you on the verge of keeping Burlington but want to close Burlington Mapleview? Mapleview is IIRC the 6th or 7th best performing mall in the GTA and is miles ahead of the Burlington Centre which is more of a local mall.. I imagine that neither Mapleview or Burlington Centre are profitable right now as they split the same market, but if you close Burlington Centre I would imagine that Mapleview would do quite well.

My closure list would probably be:

Burlington Centre
Bloor Street (but move Sak's there)
Eglinton Square
Centrepoint
Woodbine
Oakville

At this point some of those stores must just be shedding money, like Woodbine and Eglinton Square. They are all in subprime locations or malls either too small to drive enough traffic (Oakville) or too low end to justify it (Woodbine).

Hillcrest and Pickering sit on the line for me, could go either way. Hillcrest isn't really a regional shopping centre but is newly (and beautifully) renovated and is a fairly high end mall, Pickering has a half decent service area and seems to be moving a bit upmarket in the next few years..

All the other stores sit in locations that I imagine they could turn into profitable stores, even if they aren't right now. Many need some money to bring them to that state though.

Burlington was a toss-up, as I'd really rather see a downtown Hamilton store. I've only been to Mapleview...........meh.

Pickering store is a dumpster fire. Ok, I'm being mean, but really most Walmart's are better kept. Keeping the store as is damages the brand.

I'd cut Eglinton Sqr as well, but I'm not sure if they currently pay any fees to the mall, its my impression the store is owned outright by HBC. (I just checked the City's site, it is a distinct lot from the mall) .

The issue for me is less whether some stores turn a marginal profit than whether they help the brand of the store or hurt it.

There's room for some non-flagship spaces in smaller communities, but I would tend to rebrand those as something other than Hudson's Bay; and they would mainly serve as a distribution point for online sales.

I just don't see Hillcrest as flagship material, or Pickering etc.