Kmart Corporation is an American retail company that owns a chain of big-box department stores. The company is headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, United States. The company was incorporated in 1899 as S. S. Kresge Corporation and renamed Kmart Corporation in 1977. The first store with the Kmart name opened in 1962 in Garden City, Michigan. At its peak in 1994, Kmart operated 2,486 stores globally, including 2,323 discount stores and Super Kmart Center locations in the United States. As of April 16, 2022, that number was down to nine, including just three in the continental United States. From 2005 through 2019, Kmart was a subsidiary of Sears Holdings Corporation. Since 2019, Kmart has been a subsidiary of Transform SR Brands LLC, a privately held company that was formed in 2019 to acquire assets from Sears Holdings.
Sears, Roebuck and Co., commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began as a mail ordering catalog company migrating to opening retail locations in 1925, the first in Chicago. In 2005, the company was bought by the management of the American big box discount chain Kmart, which upon completion of the merger, formed Sears Holdings. Through the 1980s, Sears was the largest retailer in the United States. In 2018, it was the 31st-largest. After several years of declining sales, Sears's parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 15, 2018. It announced on January 16, 2019, that it had won its bankruptcy auction, and that a reduced number of 425 stores would remain open, including 223 Sears stores.
Magna International Inc. is a Canadian parts manufacturer for automakers. It is one of the largest companies in Canada and was recognized on the 2020 Forbes Global 2000. The company is the largest automobile parts manufacturer in North America by sales of original equipment parts; it has ranked consistently in the Fortune Global 500 list for 20 years in a row since 2001. It produces automotive systems, assemblies, modules, and components, which are supplied to General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, as well as BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen, Toyota, Tesla, and Tata Motors, among others.
AutoZone, Inc. is an American retailer of aftermarket automotive parts and accessories, the largest in the United States. Founded in 1979, AutoZone has 7,140 stores across the United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Brazil and the US Virgin Islands. The company is based in Memphis, Tennessee.
Western Auto Supply Company—known more widely as Western Auto—was a specialty retail chain of stores that supplied automobile parts and accessories. It operated approximately 1,200 stores across the United States. It was started in 1909 in Kansas City, Missouri, by George Pepperdine and Don Abnor Davis. Pepperdine later founded Pepperdine University. Western Auto was bought by Beneficial Corporation in 1961; Western Auto's management led a leveraged buyout in 1985, leading three years later to a sale to Sears. Sears sold most of the company to Advance Auto Parts in 1998, and by 2003, the resulting merger had led to the end of the Western Auto brand and its product distribution network.
Craftsman is a line of tools, lawn and garden equipment, and work wear. Originally a house brand established by Sears, the brand is now owned by Stanley Black & Decker.
Johnson Controls International is an American, Irish-domiciled multinational conglomerate headquartered in Cork, Ireland, that produces fire, HVAC, and security equipment for buildings. As of mid-2019, it employed 105,000 people in around 2,000 locations across six continents. In 2017 it was listed as 389th in the Fortune Global 500. It became ineligible for the Fortune 500 in subsequent years since it relocated its headquarters outside the U.S.
The Commuter Cars Tango is a prototype ultra-narrow electric sports car designed and built by Commuter Cars, an electric car company based in Spokane, Washington.
Trak Auto Corporation was an American retail chain specializing in automotive parts and accessories based in Landover, Maryland. Founded by Robert Haft in 1979, at its peak in 1993 it operated 333 stores around the United States under the Trak Auto, Super Trak, and Super Trak Warehouse concepts. A declining market, stiff competition, and management problems led to a steep decline and bankruptcy, with its remaining stores acquired by and converted to Advance Auto Parts in 2002.
Exide was originally a brand name for batteries produced by The Electric Storage Battery Company and later became Exide Corporation doing business as Exide Technologies, an American multinational lead-acid batteries manufacturing company. It manufactures automotive batteries and industrial batteries. It is based in Milton, Georgia, United States.
Advance Auto Parts, Inc. is an American automotive aftermarket parts provider. Headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, it serves both professional installer and do it yourself (DIY) customers. As of April 2022, Advance operated 4,687 stores and 311 Worldpac branches in the United States and Canada. The company also serves 1,318 independently owned Carquest-branded stores in the U.S., Mexico, The Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, and British Virgin Islands.
Spectrum Brands Holdings, Inc. is an American diversified company headquartered in Middleton, Wisconsin. It was established in 2005 as the successor to Rayovac Corporation. It is one of the Fortune 500 companies, and among the largest of its kind.
The automotive industry in Pakistan is one of the smallest but fastest-growing industries in the country, growing by 171% between 2014 and 2018. It accounts for 3% of Pakistan's GDP and employed a workforce of over 3.5 million people as of 2018. Pakistan is the 23rd largest producer of automobiles. Its contribution to the national exchequer is nearly Rs. 50-billion. Pakistan's auto market is among the smallest but fastest growing in Asia. 269,792 cars were sold in 2018, but this number declined to 186,716 in 2019 due to austerity measures. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Pakistan had many Japanese cars. With the launch of the first Auto Policy in 2005, Pakistan launched its first indigenous car, Adam Revo. However, after the 2008 elections, the dollar started depreciating, and due to bad governance, many automakers began to halt production, with some exiting Pakistan. Currently, the auto market is dominated by Honda, Toyota, and Suzuki. However, on 19 March 2016, Pakistan passed a second "Auto Policy 2016-21," which offers tax incentives to new automakers to establish manufacturing plants in the country. In response, Renault, Nissan, Proton Holdings, Kia, SsangYong, Volkswagen, FAW, and Hyundai have expressed interest in entering the Pakistani market. MG JW Automobile Pakistan has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Morris Garages (MG) Motor UK Limited, owned by SAIC Motor, to bring electric vehicles to Pakistan. NLC signed an agreement with Mercedes Benz to manufacture Mercedes Actros trucks in Pakistan. Pakistan has not enforced any automotive safety standards or model upgrade policies. A few older vehicle models, including the Bolan and Ravi, continue to be sold by Suzuki. On 8 July 2021, Jolta Electric launched the production of electric motorcycles.
National Tire and Battery (NTB) is an American brand of auto service centers. It was formerly owned by Sears until it was spun off in 2003. In 2020, Mavis Tire Supply Co. bought 112 NTB Tire & Service Centers, leaving the parent TBC Corporation with 615 locations under the Tire Kingdom and NTB brands.
Sears Holdings Corporation was an American holding company headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. It was the parent company of the chain stores Kmart and Sears and was founded after the former purchased the latter in 2005. It was the 20th-largest retailing company in the United States in 2015. It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 15, 2018, and sold its assets to ESL Investments in 2019. The new owner moved Sears assets to its newly formed subsidiary Transform Holdco LLC and after that, Sears Holdings Corporation was closed.
Amara Raja Group, is an Indian multinational conglomerate company, headquartered in Tirupati, India. The group has a presence in the automotive battery business, packaged foods and beverages, electronics products manufacturing, infrastructure sector, power system production and fabrication of sheet metal products and fasteners. The Amara Raja Group is known for its automotive battery brand Amaron, the second largest selling automotive battery brand in India after Exide Industries.
Energy Products Inc. is a privately owned company based in Madison Heights, Michigan. They are a provider of batteries, chargers, industrial utility vehicles, scrubbers/sweepers and recycling services. They sell and maintain industrial batteries and charging systems for forklifts, material handling equipment, AGV’s and utility vehicles used primarily in manufacturing and warehousing. Energy Products is also a wholesale distributor of automotive, deep cycle and sealed lead acid batteries as well as batteries and chargers for consumer electronic devices. In 2012 Energy Products started engineering, furnishing and installing backup power systems, service testing and provides removal services for a wide range of customers including banks, hospitals, property managers and the telecommunication industry. Energy Products offers a comprehensive recycling program for all battery chemistries. In 2013 they announced they recycled over 2,000,000 pounds of batteries in 2012 for customers located throughout the United States.
Karma Automotive is a Chinese-owned American producer of luxury electric vehicles founded in 2014. Headquartered in Irvine, California, United States with an assembly plant located in Moreno Valley, Karma sells vehicles via its dealer network of locations in North America, Europe, South America, and the Middle East.
Transform SR Brands LLC is an American privately held company formed on February 11, 2019, to acquire some of the assets of Sears Holdings Corporation. The new company is owned by ESL Investments. Following the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing of Sears Holdings on October 15, 2018, Transformco purchased the surviving assets owned by Sears Holdings for $5.2 billion.
