 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(August 2022) |
A.J. (Alfred Jackson) Billes, CM (December 1, 1902 - April 3, 1995) was a Canadian businessman and co-founder of Canadian Tire. [1] [2]
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(August 2022) |
A.J. (Alfred Jackson) Billes, CM (December 1, 1902 - April 3, 1995) was a Canadian businessman and co-founder of Canadian Tire. [1] [2]
Born in Toronto, Ontario, Billes went at age 16 to work as a clerk at a branch of the Dominion Bank. In 1922, he used his savings to team up with his brother William to buy Hamilton Tire and Garage Ltd. in Toronto. The following year, the brothers moved the business to downtown Toronto where they began the conversion to a garage/retail business. In 1927, the brothers incorporated under the name Canadian Tire Corporation Ltd. and in 1934, Canadian Tire opened its first official associate store in Toronto. The Billes brothers expanded the business into a full line of automotive products and home and garden supplies. They created owner/operated stores throughout the province of Ontario and into Quebec and the Maritime Provinces. Then, in 1966, they opened a store in Winnipeg, Manitoba. By 1980, Canadian Tire was the most successful Canadian-owned and operated franchise in the country's history with a nationwide network of dealer-operated Canadian Tire associate stores.
On the unexpected death of his brother William in November 1956, Alfred Billes took over as president. He held the position for the next ten years and served as a director until 1988. When he stepped down as the company's president and CEO, the Board of Directors named Dean Muncaster (b. 1934) as his successor.
In 1976, Billes was made a member of the Order of Canada and, in 1990, in recognition of his contribution to the Canadian economy, was voted into the Canadian Business Hall of Fame. [1]
Billes married Marjorie Kitchen Baldry, his second wife, but sons Fred and David and a daughter Martha were by his first wife. He died in 1995 and was interred in Toronto's Mount Pleasant Cemetery. [3]
A publicly traded company on the Toronto Stock Exchange, Canadian Tire's Class A Non-Voting shares are widely held. However, the company has a dual share structure that gives voting control to the holders of a relatively small number of Common shares. Following the settlement of Alfred Billes' estate, in 1997, Martha Billes bought out her brothers and, through a substantial ownership of the Common shares, she has a controlling interest in the company.
In honour of Alfred Billes, the company's distribution centre in Brampton, Ontario, was named the A.J. Billes Centre.
Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited is a Canadian retail company which operates in the automotive, hardware, sports, leisure and housewares sectors. Its Canadian operations include: Canadian Tire, Mark's, FGL Sports, PartSource, and the Canadian operations of Party City. Canadian Tire acquired the Norwegian clothing and textile company Helly Hansen from the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan in 2018.
Sears Canada Inc. was a publicly-traded Canadian company affiliated with the American-based Sears department store chain. In operation from 1952 until January 14, 2018, and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, the company began as Simpsons-Sears—a joint venture between the Canadian Simpsons department store chain and the American Sears chain—which operated a national mail order business and co-branded Simpsons-Sears stores modelled after those of Sears in the U.S. After the Hudson's Bay Company purchased Simpsons in 1978, the joint venture was dismantled and Hudson's Bay sold its shares in the joint venture to Sears; with Sears now fully owning the company, it was renamed Sears Canada Inc. in 1984. In 1999, Sears Canada acquired the remaining assets and locations of the historic Canadian chain Eaton's. From 2014, Sears Holdings owned a 10% share in the company. ESL Investments was the largest shareholder of Sears Canada.
Metro Inc. is a Canadian food retailer operating in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario. The company is based in Montreal, Quebec, with head office at 11011 Boulevard Maurice-Duplessis. Metro is the third largest grocer in Canada, after Loblaw Companies Limited and Sobeys.
Loblaw Companies Limited is a Canadian retailer encompassing corporate and franchise supermarkets operating under 22 regional and market-segment banners, as well as pharmacies, banking and apparel. Loblaw operates a private label program that includes grocery and household items, clothing, baby products, pharmaceuticals, cellular phones, general merchandise and financial services. Loblaw is the largest Canadian food retailer, and its brands include President's Choice, No Name and Joe Fresh. It is controlled by George Weston Limited, a holding company controlled by the Weston family; Galen G. Weston, is the chair of the Loblaw board of directors, as well as chair of the board of directors and CEO of Canada-based holding company George Weston.
Sobeys Inc. is the second largest supermarket chain in Canada after Loblaw Companies Limited, with over 1,500 stores operating across Canada under a variety of banners. Headquartered in Stellarton, Nova Scotia, it operates stores in all ten provinces and accumulated sales of more than C$25.1 billion in the fiscal 2019 operating year. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Empire Company Limited, a Canadian business conglomerate.
The Robert Simpson Company Limited, commonly known as Simpson's until 1972, then as Simpsons, and in Quebec sometimes as Simpson, was a Canadian department store chain that had its earliest roots in a store opened in 1858 by Robert Simpson.
The T. Eaton Company Limited, later known as Eaton's and then Eaton, was a Canadian department store chain that was once the largest in the country. It was founded in 1869 in Toronto by Timothy Eaton, an immigrant from what is now Northern Ireland. Eaton's grew to become a retail and social institution in Canada, with stores across the country, buying-offices around the globe, and a mail-order catalog that was found in the homes of most Canadians. A changing economic and retail environment in the late twentieth century, along with mismanagement, culminated in the chain's bankruptcy in 1999.
Edward Plunket Taylor, CMG was a Canadian business tycoon, investor and philanthropist. He was a famous breeder of Thoroughbred race horses, and a major force behind the evolution of the Canadian horse-racing industry. Known to his friends as "Eddie", he is all but universally recorded as "E. P. Taylor".
T&T Supermarkets is a Canadian supermarket chain that sells primarily Asian foods, including fresh produce, meat, seafood, and Asian packaged goods. It also sells kitchenware and gifts, and has in-store kitchens and bakeries. T&T Supermarkets was founded in Vancouver in 1993 by Cindy Lee. It is currently led by CEO Tina Lee, who succeeded her mother in 2014. In 2009, T&T Supermarkets was acquired by Loblaw Companies Limited.
Pep Boys is an American automotive aftermarket service chain. Originally named Pep Auto Supply, the company was founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1921 by Emanuel "Manny" Rosenfeld, Maurice "Moe" Strauss, W. Graham "Jack" Jackson, and Moe Radavitz. Pep Boys is headquartered in the Philadelphia suburb of Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.
Edward Samuel Rogers Sr. was a Canadian inventor and pioneer in the radio industry who founded the Rogers Vacuum Tube Company and the CFRB radio station in Toronto, Ontario. His only child, Edward S. Rogers Jr., established Rogers Communications.
Steinberg's was a large family-owned Canadian grocery store chain that mainly operated in the province of Quebec and later Ontario. In addition to its flagship supermarket chain, the company operated several subsidiaries across the country. The company went bankrupt in 1992, three years after being sold to private interests, after 75 years in business.
Canadian Tire money, officially Canadian Tire 'money' or CTM, is a loyalty program operated by the Canadian retail chain Canadian Tire Corporation (CTC). It consists of both paper coupons introduced in 1958 and used in Canadian Tire stores as scrip, and since 2012 in a digital form introduced as Canadian Tire Money Advantage, rebranded in 2018 as Triangle Rewards. Both forms of the loyalty program remain current as of December 2022. Canadian Tire Money has been noted as the most successful loyalty program in Canadian retail history.
A.J. Freiman Limited, or Freimans, was a landmark department store at 73 Rideau Street in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, founded in 1918 by Archibald J. Freiman.
John William Billes was a Canadian businessman and co-founder of Canadian Tire. Born in Toronto, Ontario, in 1922 he and his brother Alfred Jackson Billes bought Hamilton Tire and Garage Ltd. in Toronto. The following year they moved the garage to downtown Toronto where they began the conversion to a garage/retail business. In 1927 they incorporated under the name Canadian Tire Corporation Ltd. with William Billes as its President.
This article describes the Economic History of Hamilton, Ontario.
Yogen Früz is a Canadian chain of frozen yogurt and smoothie stores that also serves healthy alternative food products. The chain is run through company-owned, franchised, and non-traditional partnerships. The chain operates worldwide and has been rated one of the top 500 franchises for over 20 years. The global headquarters is in Markham, Ontario in the Greater Toronto Area of Canada.
Lojas Renner is a Brazilian department store clothing company, headquartered in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. It was the first Brazilian corporation with a hundred percent of shares traded on the Stock Exchange and listed on the Novo Mercado, the highest amongst the different levels of corporate governance in São Paulo Stock Exchange (B3). Its main competitors are Lojas Riachuelo, C&A, and Hering.
Fountain Tire Holdings Ltd. is a Canadian tire dealer and automotive service provider with 164 consumer service locations and 8 Distribution Centres in Central and Western Canada. The company also provides tires and tire-related services to commercial truck fleets and off-road vehicles used in agriculture, oil, gas, mining, and construction.
Joseph Dean Muncaster, was a Canadian businessman. He is best known as a President of Canadian Tire.