The Hudson's Bay Company gives up all claims to Vancouver Island.
The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; French: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is an American-owned retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada and the United States.In 2006, an American businessman, Jerry Zucker, bought HBC for US$1.1 billion. The company sold most of its European operations by August 2019 and its remaining stores, in the Netherlands, were closed by the end of 2019. HBC owns the Saks Fifth Avenue and Saks Off 5th stores in the United States; most other American operations were sold by mid-2019 and the last remaining stores (Lord & Taylor chain) were sold prior to the end of 2019.
The company's namesake business division is Hudson's Bay, commonly referred to as The Bay (La Baie in French).After incorporation by English royal charter in 1670, the company functioned as the de facto government in parts of North America for nearly 200 years until the HBC sold the land it owned (the entire Hudson Bay drainage basin, known as Rupert's Land) to Canada in 1869 as part of the Deed of Surrender, authorized by the Rupert's Land Act 1868.
At its peak, the company controlled the fur trade throughout much of the English- and later British-controlled North America. By the mid-19th century, the company evolved into a mercantile business selling a wide variety of products from furs to fine homeware in a small number of sales shops (as opposed to trading posts) across Canada. These shops were the first step towards the department stores the company owns today.In 2008, HBC was acquired by NRDC Equity Partners, which also owned the upmarket American department store Lord & Taylor. From 2008 to 2012, the HBC was run through a holding company of NRDC, Hudson's Bay Trading Company, which was dissolved in early 2012. HBC's head office is currently located in Brampton, Ontario. Until March 2020, the company was listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "HBC.TO" until Baker and a group of shareholders took the company private.HBC is, as of 2022, the majority owner of ecommerce companies Saks and Saks Off 5th, both established as separate operating companies in 2021. HBC wholly owns SFA, the entity that operates Saks Fifth Avenue's physical locations; O5, the operating company for Saks Off 5th stores; The Bay, an ecommerce marketplace and Hudson’s Bay, the operating company for Hudson’s Bay’s brick-and-mortar stores.HBC owns or controls approximately 3.7 million square metres (40 million square feet) of gross leasable real estate through its real estate and investment arm, HBC Properties and Investments, established in October 2020.