Channel Home Centers (formerly known as Channel Lumber Company and often simply known as Channel) was a chain of home-improvement centers that was based in Whippany, New Jersey.
A 1975 New York Times profile traced the company's origins to a lumber business started in Newark in 1922 by two Russian Jewish Americans, Abraham Levy and Morris Charin (1887–1963).[1][2] A 1990 article in the same publication, and other company releases, however, have put the founding date at 1908.[3] Louis L. Slater (1913–1987), son-in-law of Levy,[1] opened the first retail outlet in Newark, New Jersey in 1948.[4]
Expansion
In 1963, it was reported that Channel Lumber had seven locations, all in New Jersey.[5]
By late 1975, the chain had 24 locations, 22 of which were in New Jersey.[1]W. R. Grace and Company purchased the company from the Slater family in 1977[3] for $19 million.[6] By 1979, the company had expanded to over 70 locations, moving beyond New Jersey and Pennsylvania to enter New York, Connecticut, and Delaware in 1978, and Maryland and Massachusetts in 1979.[7]
In 1986, Channel's executives bought the company through a leveraged buyout.[8] The purchase included a total of 202 retail locations in 20 states, including home centers under W.R. Grace located in the southeast, among them "Handy City" and Handy Dan.[6]
Bankruptcy
By 1990, the chain had grown to 89 Channel outlets in nine states,[3][9] but in early 1991, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and announced a plan to close 34 of 86 stores, mostly in the Baltimore-Washington and New England markets.[9] It emerged from bankruptcy in March 1992.[6]
In 1994, Channel and its competitor Rickel were bought by a venture capital firm, which merged the operations of the two chains under the Rickel name. At that point in time, it had 60 locations, and its 1993 sales topped $300 million.[10] Fifty-nine of Channel's sixty stores were rebranded; the only one that was not was its location in Totowa, New Jersey as Rickel already had a store in the vicinity.
↑ "New Incorporations". The New York Times. June 9, 1922. Retrieved December 29, 2009.("Channel Lumber Co., Belleville, lumber, $125,000; Morris Charin, Max Adelman, Abraham Levy, Newark.")
↑ "Obituary: Morris Charin". The New York Times. April 6, 1963. Retrieved December 29, 2009.("Morris Charin, founder and president of the Channel Lumber Company, which operates a chain of seven retail outlets in this state, died Thursday in Miami, Fla. He was 76 years old....:")
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