Kuhn's-Big K

Last updated
Kuhn's-Big K
Founded1913 (as Kuhn Brothers)
1962 (as Big K)
Defunct1981
FateMerged with Walmart
SuccessorWalmart
Headquarters Columbia, Tennessee
Number of locations
18 (1969)
21 (1970)
105 (1977)
Subsidiaries Big K-Edward's

Kuhn's-Big K, (typically signed as simply Big K) was a large discount store chain in the Southeastern United States that merged with Walmart in 1981 [1] The store is entirely unrelated to, and preceded, Big Kmart

Contents

History

Kuhn's-Big K began in 1913, as a chain of variety stores called Kuhn Brothers, founded in Columbia, Tennessee. The first Kuhn's-Big K was opened in 1962, and by 1969 operated 35 variety stores and 18 Big K discount department stores. That same year, the company was officially renamed to Kuhn's - Big K Stores Corporation. [2] In March 1970, the company announced plans to go public with 400,000 shares, then operating 21 Big K stores and 34 Kuhn's Variety Stores. [3] The company later went public in April 1971, with 512,000 shares of common stock. [4]

Kuhn's Big K began an expansion push in the early 1970s, and by August 1971 had a total of 17 stores in varying stages of development. [5] The company at this time began to open larger and larger stores, the biggest at the time being a planned 76,000 sq ft location in Nashville, Tennessee. [5] The company had a total of 30 Big K stores and 32 Kuhn's Variety Stores, when they bought out the lease of a Sky City store in Greeneville, Tennessee in January 1972. [6] Big K expanded into South Carolina with the purchase of competing discount chain Edward's in September 1977, adding 33 stores, operated as subsidiary Big K-Edwards, to the then 105 stores. [7] [8]

In June 1981, Kuhn's-Big K, then described as "financially struggling" by The New York Times , agreed to a merger with competitor Walmart in a deal valued at $13 million. The merger followed another attempted merger with Walmart in 1980, which collapsed due to store lease complications. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walmart</span> American multinational retail corporation

Walmart Inc. is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores, and grocery stores in the United States, headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas. The company was founded by brothers Sam and James "Bud" Walton in nearby Rogers, Arkansas in 1962 and incorporated under Delaware General Corporation Law on October 31, 1969. It also owns and operates Sam's Club retail warehouses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sam Walton</span> American businessman (1918–1992)

Samuel Moore Walton was an American business magnate best known for founding the retailers Walmart and Sam's Club, which he started in 1962 and 1983 respectively. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. grew to be the world's largest corporation by revenue as well as the biggest private employer in the world. For a period of time, Walton was the richest person in the United States. His family has remained the richest family in the U.S. for several consecutive years, with a net worth of around US$240.6 billion as of January 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asda</span> British supermarket chain

Asda Stores Ltd. is a British supermarket chain. Its headquarters are in Leeds, England. The company was founded in 1949 when the Asquith family merged their retail business with the Associated Dairies company of Yorkshire. It expanded into Southern England during the 1970s and 1980s, and acquired Allied Carpets, 61 large Gateway Supermarkets and other businesses, such as MFI Group. It sold these acquisitions during the 1990s to concentrate on the supermarkets. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange until 1999 when it was acquired by Walmart for £6.7 billion. Asda was the second-largest supermarket chain in the United Kingdom between 2003 and 2014 by market share, at which point it fell into third place.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kmart</span> U.S. big box retailer and subsidiary of Transform Holdco LLC

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woolco</span> Defunct American discount department store

Woolco was an American-based discount retail chain. It was founded in 1962 in Columbus, Ohio, by the F. W. Woolworth Company. It was a full-line discount department store unlike the five-and-dime Woolworth stores which operated at the time. At its peak, Woolco had hundreds of stores in the US, as well as in Canada and the United Kingdom. While the American stores were closed in 1983, the chain remained active in Canada until it was sold in 1994 to rival Walmart, which was looking to enter the Canadian market. All of the former UK Woolco stores were sold by Kingfisher, who had bought the UK Woolworth business, to Gateway who subsequently sold them to Asda.

A discount store or discounter offers a retail format in which products are sold at prices that are in principle lower than an actual or supposed "full retail price". Discounters rely on bulk purchasing and efficient distribution to keep down costs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harris Teeter</span> American supermarket chain

Harris Teeter Supermarkets, LLC., also known as Harris Teeter Neighborhood Food & Pharmacy, is an American supermarket chain based in Matthews, North Carolina, a suburb of Charlotte. As of January 2023, the chain operates 258 stores in seven South Atlantic states and Washington, D.C.. Supermarket News ranked Harris Teeter No. 34 in the 2012 "Top 75 Retailers & Wholesalers" based on 2011 fiscal year sales of $4.3 billion.

Fred Meyer is an American chain of hypermarket superstores founded in 1922 in Portland, Oregon, USA, by Fred G. Meyer. The stores are found in the northwest U.S., within the states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska. The company merged with Kroger in 1998, though the stores are still branded Fred Meyer. The chain was one of the first in the United States to promote one-stop shopping, eventually combining a complete grocery supermarket with a drugstore, bank, clothing, jewelry, home decor, home improvement, garden, electronics, restaurant, shoes, sporting goods and toys. The Fred Meyer division is headquartered in Portland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Big-box store</span> Physically large retail establishment

A big-box store is a physically large retail establishment, usually part of a chain of stores. The term sometimes also refers, by extension, to the company that operates the store. The term "big-box" references the typical appearance of buildings occupied by such stores.

Hypermart USA was a demonstrator project operated by Walmart in the 1980s and 1990s, which attempted to combine groceries and general merchandise under one roof at a substantial discount. The hypermart concept was modeled after earlier efforts from other retailers, notably French retailers such as Auchan and Carrefour, and the Midwestern big retailer Meijer.

emart South Korean company

Emart Inc. is the largest retailer in South Korea. There were 160 stores across the country as of December 2016. It was founded on 12 November 1993 by Shinsegae as the first discount retailer in South Korea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roses (store)</span> American chain of discount stores

Roses Discount Stores is a regional discount store in the United States with its headquarters in Henderson, North Carolina. The chain has stores in fifteen states, primarily in the South.

Walmart Canada is a Canadian retail corporation and the subsidiary of U.S.-based multinational retail conglomerate Walmart. Headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, it was founded on March 17, 1994, with the purchase of the Woolco Canada chain from the F. W. Woolworth Company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FedMart</span> American discount department store chain

FedMart was a chain of discount department stores started by Sol Price, who later founded Price Club. Originally a discount department store open to government employees paying a $2 per family membership fee, FedMart's first year was highly successful to some, yet struggled to others. Over the next 20 years FedMart grew to include 45 stores, mostly in California, and the Southwest in a chain that generated over $300 million in annual sales. The business expanded to several states in the Southwest United States. Many stores were previous White Front or Two Guys locations. Price later sold two-thirds of the chain to Hugo Mann, a German retail chain, in 1975 and was forced out of his leadership position the following year. FedMart went out of business in 1982.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Walmart</span> History of American retail corporation

The history of Walmart, an American discount department store chain, began in 1950 when businessman Sam Walton purchased a store from Luther E. Harrison in Bentonville, Arkansas, and opened Walton's 5 & 10. The Walmart chain proper was founded in 1962 with a single store in Rogers, expanding outside Arkansas by 1968 and throughout the rest of the Southern United States by the 1980s, ultimately operating a store in every state of the United States, plus its first stores in Canada, by 1995. The expansion was largely fueled by new store construction, although the chains Mohr-Value and Kuhn's Big K were also acquired. The company introduced its warehouse club chain Sam's Club in 1983 and its first Supercenter stores in 1998.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rivergate Mall</span> Shopping mall in Tennessee, United States

Rivergate Mall is a super-regional shopping mall located in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, United States, just outside of Nashville, the state capital of Tennessee. Opened in October 1971, the mall features 1,129,035 square feet (104,890.8 m2) of gross leasable area, with approximately 80 stores and restaurants, as well as a food court. Its original anchor stores were Cain-Sloan, Castner Knott, and JCPenney. Rivergate Mall has two anchor stores: Dillard's and JCPenney. There are two vacant anchor stores that were formerly Macy's and Sears. The mall sits in the core of a shopping district that is shared by the city of Goodlettsville and the Nashville neighborhood of Madison. This area is colloquially referred to by locals as "Rivergate," after the mall. Rivergate Mall is managed by Hendon Properties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ashley Landing</span> Shopping mall in South Carolina, USA

Ashley Landing is a shopping mall in Charleston, South Carolina, United States. It was the first indoor shopping mall in the West Ashley area of Charleston when the complex was fully completed in 1972. The center, located at 1401 Sam Rittenberg Boulevard at the fork of Old Towne Road was developed by Gate City Realty Company of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Ground was broken for the complex in 1962 with Ashley Plaza opening on April 16, 1964. At its opening the shopping center consisted of J.M. Fields Department Stores joined to a Pantry Pride supermarket, built at a cost of $1.75 million and owned by Sumar Corporation of South Carolina. The locally owned Condon's Department Store, constructed adjacent to Pantry Pride as a freestanding building, became the third tenant when it opened in 1970. The center, originally known as "Ashley Plaza" was noted for its large red and white neon pylon "Ashley Plaza" sign in the center of the parking lot that remained until 1989 when it was destroyed by Hurricane Hugo.

Harding Mall was a shopping mall located in suburban Nashville, Tennessee, United States. It was southeast of downtown at the corner of Nolensville Pike US 31A/US 41A and Harding Place in the Paragon Mills neighborhood. Built in 1966, it was demolished in 2005 for a Walmart. Harding Mall is notable for being the first enclosed shopping mall in the state of Tennessee.

References

  1. 1 2 "Kuhn's Big K Stores Plans Wal-Mart Tie". New York Times . June 23, 1981.
  2. "Kuhn Brothers Name Changed To Big K". Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle. July 2, 1969. Retrieved May 5, 2020.
  3. "Big K Plans Stock Offering". The Nashville Tennessean. March 27, 1970. Retrieved May 5, 2020.
  4. "The first public offering..." The Boston Globe. April 3, 1971. Retrieved May 5, 2020.
  5. 1 2 "Big K Planning 7 New Outlets". The Nashville Tennessean. August 20, 1971. Retrieved May 5, 2020.
  6. "Big K obtains Greene firm's lease". Johnson City Press Chronicle. January 8, 1972. Retrieved May 5, 2020.
  7. "ACQUISITIONS". The Atlanta Journal & The Atlanta Constitution. September 5, 1977. Retrieved May 5, 2020.
  8. "33-Store S. Carolina Chain Acquired by Kuhn's-Big K". The Tennessean. September 2, 1977. Retrieved May 5, 2020.