HBC a New Era

With the completed acquisiton of HBC, Maple Leaf Investments has taken Canada's oldest publically traded company private, in a wise decision to better compete within the Canadian department store market. The American owners will no doubt spin off Home Outfitters, the Bay, and the northern outlets leaving Zellers to forge out a new landscape in Canadian retail. Zellers was the only component on HBC consolidated statements that consistently out performed the HBC's other lagging assets. With spinning these companies off it will permit Maple Leaf Investments to acquire much needed to capital to reduce the debt load of HBC as well as the interest ratios that might allow them to renegotiate their current long term loans to a more favourable interest rate. Zellers with the additional capital should be better able to compete against Walmart in Canada. It currently hopes to keep the edge in number of retail outlets even with the continued decisions to spin off unprofitable Zellers reatil sales chains. It appears that Americanization of Canada, hasn't stoped with the purchase of Master Ribero's hockey team, but has purchased one of Canada's former most loved retail outlets. Its a shame that Canadian culture is once again comprimised over a loonie or maybe in this case Washington himself has succeeded in his plans to annex Canada although it took him longer than even he could image :)