Canadian Tire preparing revival of Hudson’s Bay trademarks for later this year: CEO

Article content

TORONTO — Shoppers will get their first peek at what the Hudson’s Bay brand looks like under Canadian Tire Corp. Ltd. ownership later this year.

Article content

Canadian Tire CEO Greg Hicks says his company will release “some updates and fun initiatives” linked to the fallen department store starting in the fourth quarter of this year but will leave the launch of a more “meaningful product presence” for the back half of 2026.

Article content

Article content

“I can’t overstate how excited we are to continue the HBC story,” he told analysts on a call.

Article content

Article content

HBC, which filed for creditor protection and closed all of its stores earlier this year, sold its intellectual property to Canadian Tire for $30 million in May.

Article content

Article content

The sale included HBC’s iconic stripes motif, its coat of arms, its Distinctly Home housewares brand, its Hudson North apparel line, as well as catchphrases like “Bay Days” and the Zellers slogan “the lowest price is the law.”

Article content

Canadian Tire beat out 13 other bidders, including B.C. mall owner Ruby Liu and Toronto investment manager Urbana Corp., who wanted the intellectual property belonging to what was the country’s oldest company.

Article content

The retailer has yet to reveal what exactly it will do with the trademarks it bought but Hicks indicated Thursday that his company is feeling the weight of keeping the 355-year-old retailer’s legacy alive.

Article content

“As we push forward with our commercial plans, we remind ourselves daily of both the opportunities and the expectations of stewardship that are on our shoulders,” he said.

Article content

“Our teams are determined to be considered and careful. When it comes to stewarding the stripes, we’d rather be right than fast.”

Article content

Article content

As it prepares for an eventual launch, he said his company has seen an outpouring of support.

Article content

“While we felt good about our plan, we never imagined the response from Canadians would be so overwhelmingly positive,” he said. “It was more than support for our strategy; it felt personal, a reminder of the place Canadian companies hold in Canadians’ hearts.”

Article content

The remarks from Hicks came as his company reported its second-quarter profit fell compared with a year ago as its revenue increased by about five per cent.

Article content

The Toronto-based retailer said its net income attributable to shareholders totalled $168.2 million or $2.04 per diluted share for the quarter ended June 28 compared with $207.7 million or $3.56 per diluted share a year ago.

Article content

Its net income attributable to shareholders from discontinued operations amounted to a loss of $56.1 million or $1.03 per diluted share in its latest quarter compared with a loss of $8.9 million or 16 cents per diluted share in the same quarter last year.

Article content

On a normalized basis, Canadian Tire says it earned $3.57 per diluted share from continuing operations compared with $3.72 per diluted share a year earlier.