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Hudson's Bay (formerly and still commonly known as The Bay) is a chain of 90 department stores that operate across parts of Canada. It is the main brand of Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), North America's oldest company. It has its headquarters in the Simpson Tower in Toronto. In French, the chain is known as la Baie d'Hudson (formerly la Baie), short for "Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson". The chain uses both the English and French versions of the name in some parts of the country.
The stores are full-line department stores, with a focus on fashion apparel, accessories, and home goods. Most price points are mid- to upper-mid, with some high price points in the flagship store on Queen Street in Toronto; however, there is an assortment of everyday low-price merchandise. Hudson's Bay can be compared to U.S. retailers Macy's and Nordstrom. The average store size is 135,000 square feet (12,500 m2).
Flagship downtown stores exist in Canada's largest cities, including Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, and Winnipeg, often being multi-storey, historic buildings and carry a much broader range and selection of goods than regular Hudson's Bay stores. The largest of the flagship stores is the Toronto store on Queen Street, at about 1,000,000 square feet (93,000 m2). Toronto has another smaller store on Bloor Street East and Yonge Street in the Hudson's Bay Centre.
Hudson's Bay store with older "The Bay" logo.
History[]
Modern Hudson's Bay stores root from the Hudson's Bay company which was founded in 1670, making it the oldest company in modern day Canada. Originally, The Hudson Bay company operated fur trading posts in Canada. The Hudson's Bay company also was in the real estate business, once owning a part of Canada called Rupert's Land in Western Canada. But they now only run stores as their business.
The modern Hudson's Bay Department store idea the made in the 1800s when some of these trading posts started selling general merchandise. Throughout the 1800s, Hudson's Bay department stores were built throughout the western part of Canada. The Hudson's bay Company went into the oil and gas business during World War one, which halted the renovation of turning trading posts into proper department stores, but they got back on track after both world wars.
In 1960, they bought out the Morgan's Department store chain, which made their first expansion into Central Canada. In 1965, Hudson's Bay department stores were re-branded to "The Bay." They kept this name and logo until 2013. Throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, The Hudson's Bay company bought out various department store chains, such as; Simpsons, Woodward's, and Zellers. This allowed the expansion of Hudson's Bay department stores, although Zellers were never rebranded, The Hudson's Bay company continues to use the Zellers name for various things, even though Target bought out and rebranded Zellers stores in 2013.
Hudson's Bay store with the modern logo
In the 2000s, Hudson's Bay began to decline, they started to close locations throughout Canada. In 2008, HBC was bought out by New York based NRDC Equity Partners. They started to turn around the chain of department stores, and Hudson's bay were doing better in the 2010s. In 2011, HBC sold off the Zellers chain to Target Canada so HBC could focus on Hudson's Bay stores.
In 2013, The Bay was rebranded to the current name, Hudson's Bay, with the name change, they also renovated many of their stores.
In 2023, Hudson's Bay introduced Zellers pop-up stores within some Hudson's Bay department stores. By 2024, the majority of Hudson's Bay locations had Zellers pop-up stores. In the same year, it was announced that a few Hudson's Bay locations would be closing. Either because they were under performing, or because of their proximity to another Hudson's Bay. [1]
In December 2024, Hudson's Bay decided to sell off Saks Fifth Avenue to another company, meaning that Hudson's Bay was now a stand-alone business.
2025 Insolvency and potential Chapter 11 Bankruptcy[]
In March 2025, it was announced that Hudson's Bay might file for insolvency. [2] This means that Hudson's Bay is unable to pay off all of their debt. After this, the company would usually file for bankruptcy protection, and eventually chapter 7 bankruptcy if their debts are still not payed off. If Hudson's Bay does file for bankruptcy, that means they would close their under performing locations on top of the few locations they already have or will close in 2025.
On March 10, 2025, it was officially announced that the Hudson's Bay Company would be filing for insolvency, and would be closing select under performing locations to fix their financial state, five days later, it was announced that Hudson's Bay would be liquidating all of their locations with the total liquidation starting next week, the liquidation will affect a total of 9,634 employees.
See also[]
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