The North West Company
 |
|
| Public | |
| Traded as | TSX: NWC |
| Industry | Grocery, Fur, General Merchandise |
| Founded | 1987 |
| Headquarters | Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada |
|
Key people
|
Edward S. Kennedy, President & CEO |
|
Number of employees
|
6,805 [1] |
| Website | www.northwest.ca |
The North West Company is a Canadian multinational grocery and retail company which operates stores in communities in Western Canada, Northern Canada, Alaska, Hawaii, and several other countries and US territories in Oceania and the Caribbean.
The company traces its history back to the North West Company, a fur trading business headquartered in the city of Montreal in British North America from 1779 to 1821.[2] It was merged into the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821. The enterprise continued as the Fur Trade Department, and then the Northern Stores Division of Hudson's Bay Company. In 1987, the division was acquired by a group of investors and in the 1990s it was relaunched under the old name, the North West Company. It is now a publicly traded company and is composed mainly of the old HBC Northern Stores Division. The Alaska Commercial Company traced its roots back to the Russian American Company.
Contents
Brief history[edit]
The French controlled much of what is now Canada in the early 1700s. As a result, their traders had a large fur trading network. After the conquest of New France by the British in 1763, French traders founded the North West Company and continued expanding their fur trade into the Canadian interior. The competition with the Hudson's Bay Company led to a massive environmental impact with numerous fur trade posts being built, the interior of Canada being explored, and the beaver population being exhausted. The fur trade created conflict which increased tensions between the British, French and the Aboriginals.[3]
Current operations[edit]
The North West Company's head office is located in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, built partly on the site of Upper Fort Garry. This building used to serve as the head office of the Hudson's Bay Company.
As of 2014[update], the North West Company had 4,921 employees in Canada and 1,726 employees in its international operations in Alaska, the South Pacific, and the Caribbean.[4] and was the largest employer of Aboriginal people in the business sector.[citation needed]
The company operates stores under these banners:[4]
Canadian operations
- Northern (121 stores)
- NorthMart (6 locations)
- Quickstop (12 locations)
- Giant Tiger (32 locations in Western Canada; operated under franchise from Giant Tiger Ltd.)
- Valu Lots (2 locations)
- Solo Market (1 location)
- Price Chopper (1 location; purchased from Empire Company)
- Northwest Company Fur Marketing (2 locations)
International operations
- AC Value Center (27 stores in Alaska)
- Quickstop (6 stores in Alaska)
- Cost-U-Less (13 stores in American Samoa, Barbados, the Cayman Islands, Curacao, Fiji, Guam, Hawaii, Sint Maarten, and the US Virgin Islands)
- Island Fresh Supermarket (1 store in Guam)
Link Financial Services[edit]
The Link Financial Services division operates a series of automatic teller machines (ATM) in each store, and offers the Link Debit Card, Link Credit Card and Link Prepaid Visa.[5]
Further reading[edit]
- Ahrens, Merv. Fort Lac La Pluie of the North West Company, 177?-1821. Fort Frances, Ontario: Fort Frances Times Ltd, 2006.
References[edit]
- ^ "Company Profile for North West Co Fund (CA;NWF.UN)". Retrieved 2008-10-15.
- ^ Official site
- ^ Macdowell, Laurel Sefton. "An Environmental History of Canada". University of British Columbia: UBC Press, 2012.
- ^ a b "The North West Company Inc. 2014 Annual Report" (PDF). The North West Company. Retrieved 23 July 2015.
- ^ Link Financial
External links[edit]
- The North West Company (official website)
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
