Target Canada Could Be Unloaded in 2015 to Walmart
New Target Chairman and CEO Brian Cornell is poised to make one of the biggest decisions of his professional career: whether to pull his new employer completely out of neighboring country. The fate of Target Canada after an extensive review is likely to be shared at the very latest on the company’s fourth-quarter earnings release Feb. 25. Who could be waiting in the wings to gobble up 133 Target stores and 3 distribution centers: Cornell’s former employer Walmart, which operates 391 stores in the region and views Canada as ripe for domination. Target Canada has been dead weight to Target’s financial statements since the company spent $1.8 billion in the fall of 2011 to acquire the chain’s leases from department store retailer Hudson’s Bay. From 2011 to the third-quarter of 2014, Target Canada has lost about $2.1 billion as the company battled empty shelves in everyday essential categories and a perception that its food, apparel and home goods were not priced competitively to Walmart and Loblaw’s. To its credit, Target left it all on the field in Canada this past holiday season, offering thousands of new items and sharper prices. Brian Sozzi reports.
