The North West Company

Last updated
The North West Company Inc.
Company typePublic
TSX:  NWC
Industry
Founded1987;38 years ago (1987)
Headquarters Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Key people
Daniel G. McConnell, President & CEO
Number of employees
6,805 [1]
Subsidiaries
Website www.northwest.ca

The North West Company Inc. is a multinational Canadian grocery and retail company which operates stores in Canada's western provinces and northern territories; the US states of Alaska and Hawaii; and several other countries and US territories in Oceania and the Caribbean.

Contents

The company traces its history back to the North West Company, a fur trading business headquartered in the city of Montreal in British North America from 1779 to 1821. [2] It was merged into the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821. The enterprise continued as the Fur Trade Department, and then the Northern Stores Division of Hudson's Bay Company. In 1987, the division was acquired by a group of investors and in the 1990s it was relaunched as The North West Company. It is now a publicly traded company and is composed mainly of the old HBC Northern Stores Division. The Alaska Commercial Company, which makes up The North West Company's Alaskan operations, traced its roots back to the Russian-American Company. Cost-U-Less, which operates in Hawaii, the South Pacific and the Caribbean, was acquired in 2007. [3] In 2017, 76% of Roadtown Wholesale Trading Ltd, which operates in the British Virgin Islands was acquired. [4]

Brief history

The French controlled much of what is now Canada in the early 1700s. As a result, their traders had a large fur trading network. After the conquest of New France by the British in 1763, French traders founded the North West Company and continued expanding their fur trade into the Canadian interior. The competition with the Hudson's Bay Company led to a massive environmental impact with numerous fur trade posts being built, the interior of Canada being explored, and the beaver population being exhausted. The fur trade created conflict which increased tensions between the British, French and Indigenous People. [5]

Current operations

Northern Store in Moosonee, Ontario Moosonee Northern store.JPG
Northern Store in Moosonee, Ontario
Northern Store in Fort Resolution, Northwest Territories Northern Store at Fort Resolution.jpg
Northern Store in Fort Resolution, Northwest Territories

The North West Company's head office is located in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, built partly on the site of Upper Fort Garry. This building used to serve as the head office of the Hudson's Bay Company. It also operates two offices in the United States cities of Anchorage, Alaska, and Boca Raton, Florida.

As of 2014, the North West Company had 4,921 employees in Canada and 1,726 employees in its international operations in Alaska, the South Pacific, and the Caribbean. [6] It was the largest employer of Indigenous People in the business sector.[ citation needed ]

The company operates stores under these banners: [6]

Canadian operations

International operations

We Financial

We Financial is the financial services division that operates a series of automatic teller machines (ATM) in each store, and offers the We Credit Card and We Prepaid Visa (jointly with Peoples Card Services). The division also offers cheque cashing, tax services and operates 64 Canada Post Outlets. [8]

Further reading

Related Research Articles

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References

  1. "Company Profile for North West Co Fund (CA;NWF.UN)" . Retrieved 2008-10-15.
  2. Official site Archived 2004-12-27 at the Wayback Machine
  3. North West Company Fund to Acquire Cost-U-Less
  4. "The North West Company Inc. Announces the Closing of the Acquisition of 76% Ownership in Roadtown Wholesale Trading Ltd. (operating as Riteway Food Markets)". www.canadianinsider.com. Retrieved 2021-08-05.
  5. Macdowell, Laurel Sefton. "An Environmental History of Canada". University of British Columbia: UBC Press, 2012.
  6. 1 2 "The North West Company Inc. 2014 Annual Report" (PDF). The North West Company. Retrieved 23 July 2015.
  7. "North West Company spends $31M to buy its own airline | CBC News".
  8. Link Financial