Walmart Canada - History

History

Walmart Canada was established in 1994 from the acquisition by Walmart Stores Inc. of 122 Canadian leases of Woolco, a troubled subsidiary of Woolworth Canada. The same year, these Woolco stores were renovated and converted into the Walmart banner. Wal-Mart did not acquire the Woolco stores that were either unionized or had downtown locations. Some former Woolco stores were sold and re-opened as Zellers stores.

All 16,000 former employees from the Woolco stores that Walmart acquired were retained, extensively retrained, and given a five percent raise. Mario Pilozzi, a senior vice-president at Woolco when the deal was made eventually became CEO of Walmart Canada. Pilozzi, now retired, has proclaimed that he and "his management team took a limping chain and turned it into the Wal-Mart powerhouse that became a game-changer on the Canadian business scene. Retailers changed, Canadian manufactures faced demands and volumes they had not seen before, real estate transitioned from enclosed malls to big-box plazas". Reflecting on the 1994 deal in 2013, a Walmart Canada spokesman was quoted as saying "Even though Woolco had seen better days and was struggling, there was still an enormous amount of talent in that company. I think that is one of the reasons Walmart has succeeded in Canada, is because we started with a fantastic team that we re-motivated”.

Beginning in the fall of 2006, Walmart opened new Supercentres in Canadian cities. Walmart Canada also operated Sam's Club stores in Ontario from 2006 to 2009. On February 26, 2009, they announced that it would close all six of its Canadian Sam's Club locations. This was part of Walmart Canada's decision to shift focus towards supercenter stores, but some industry observers suggested that the operation was struggling in competition with Costco and the non-membership The Real Canadian Superstore (known as Maxi & Cie in Quebec), that had a well-established history in the country. Sam's Club also rebranded the two as yet unopened locations as new Walmart Superstores.

In 2011, Walmart Canada acquired the leases of 39 Zellers stores from Target Corporation, originally one of the 189 leaseholds purchased from Hudson's Bay Company and slated for conversion to Target Canada stores. Walmart Canada has managed to convert and reopen some of the former Zellers stores before Target Canada's launch. Unlike Walmart's 1994 move into Canada, Walmart Canada this time did not guarantee the jobs of the employees whose stores they were acquiring.

Walmart Canada launched the "Urban 90" format in 2012, a set of smaller Supercentres each averaging 90,000 square feet. By the end of this year, Walmart Canada announced that 37 new supercentres will open.