W. Garfield Weston - Consolidation

Consolidation

By the early 1970s, W. Garfield Weston's North American retail operations were under considerable financial pressure and appeared headed for bankruptcy. With dwindling cash, considerable debt, and supermarket price wars that had cut the company's share of the crucial Ontario market in half, he asked his youngest son, Galen Weston, to take a look at Loblaws to see if it could be saved. In February 1972, he appointed Galen Weston as Chief Executive Officer of Loblaw Companies Limited. An extensive restructuring began which resulted in hundreds of ageing, unprofitable outlets in Canada and the United States being closed. Those stores that remained were renovated and rebranded. Half of all Loblaws stores in Ontario were eventually shut down, but the company regained market share on the strength of its redesigned supermarkets. In 1974, Garfield Weston appointed W. Galen Weston Chairman and Managing Director of George Weston Limited He retained the position of Vice Chairman and President.

In 1976, Loblaw sold off three unprofitable divisions of its National Tea Co. subsidiary in the United States. The sale of its Chicago, Syracuse, and California State supermarkets, or about half its remaining outlets in the U.S., represented the first step in a gradual divestiture of all retail and wholesale operations south of the border. That same year George Weston Limited recorded its first year-end loss in the company's history. By fiscal 1977, though, both George Weston Limited and Loblaw Companies Limited had returned to profitability.

In January 1978, Garfield Weston was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. That October, he died of a heart attack at the age of 80. He was laid to rest at Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto.

W. Garfield Weston was posthumously inducted into the Canadian Business Hall of Fame in 1980.