Canadian Retail Thread

[malek]

i didn't find it in english.

10 ontario, 3 in NS and 2 in Saskatchewan and 4 others not mentioned.

19 brand new, 35 new total in 2006.

[alps]

When are they building these stores? Next year? Rona is like a Canadian version of Home Depot?

[malek]

at this moment the article says RONA has recruited these new (franchise?) owner, it doesn't say when we'll see the buildings, must be 2007.




600+ locations
14 million sq ft
25,000+ employees
5.6 billions in sales

[harls]

I went to Wuhlll-Mart in the Plateau tonight (in Hull). Fuck did I want to punch someone. Leave it to me to do last minute shopping at the most horrible store on earth. I deserved it.

That and the sheet of black ice on the parking lot made for a most excellent evening. at least I got my frustrations out by pulling the e-brake and doing a few three-sixties near the theater while frightened soccer moms rushed their children to safety.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by harls

I went to Wuhlll-Mart in the Plateau tonight (in Hull). Fuck did I want to punch someone. Leave it to me to do last minute shopping at the most horrible store on earth. I deserved it.

Today counted as last minute?

[harls]

It's pretty close, according to Seamus O'Regan and Beverly Thomson.

[BlackRedGold]

Originally Posted by harls

I went to Wuhlll-Mart in the Plateau tonight (in Hull). Fuck did I want to punch someone. Leave it to me to do last minute shopping at the most horrible store on earth. I deserved it.

You went to Wal-Mart AND Zellers on the same night?

[SSLL]

Originally Posted by CharlesMunroe

The one on the Queensway is still basically St. Hubert. It is the exact same menu, the exact same food and the same prices. Even the colours are the same, just the name has changed.

Yeah? I'll give it a go. It's interesting Eastern Ontarians are the only ones who can experience both Swiss Chalet and St-Hub.

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

i went downtown last night and couldn't believe how dead it was - almost all the shops were closed up by 9 pm, the bay and sears were open until 10 pm but other than my friend and I there was pretty much no one on some of the floors

the malls out in the burbs were mostly all open untill 11 pm and looked busy when i went past

its weird how the downtown is so dense yet the shopping was so dead

Thats what happens when you allow to many suburban malls. Its sucks the life out of downtown.

[SpongeG]

the cafes, bars, pubs and clubs were all packed though

the roxy had a line up outside - as usual

[SpongeG]

Ritchies Bros. grosses $2.72 billion US in sales

VANCOUVER - Richmond, B.C.-based Ritchie Bros. grossed an estimated record $2.72 billion US in sales this year, the world's largest auctioneer announced Friday.

That's a 30 per cent gain on last year despite tight markets for industrial equipment around the globe, said CEO Peter Blake.

``It truly was a remarkable year for our company,'' Blake said in a statement. ``We helped a record number of buyers and sellers to access the global market using our unreserved auctions.''

Ritchie Bros. sells a broad range of used and new industrial equipment typically used in the construction, transportation, materials handling, mining, forestry, petroleum, marine, real estate and agricultural industries.

Working with a record number of truck and equipment sellers, the auctioneer handled more than 32,000 consignments and sold more than 240,000 lots, up from more than 203,000 lots in 2005.

It conducted 177 industrial auctions with average gross sales of more than $14 million US in 13 countries throughout North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Australia. It also held 141 agricultural auctions and one real estate auction.

The company's Internet bidding service set records with more than 9,660 qualified customers from 76 countries making purchases of more than $446 million US worth of trucks, equipment, and real estate, a 57 per cent increase over last year's online gross auction sales.

Internet bidders represented about 24 per cent of total registered bidders at industrial auctions and they were the buyers or runner-up bidders on 24 per cent of the lots offered online.

The company's biggest auction in more than 40 years of business took place in February in Orlando, Fla., generating gross sales of more than $113 million US.

There was also a Canadian record-breaking auction in Edmonton in October which generated gross sales of more than $52 million Cdn.

http://www.canada.com/topics/finance/story.html?id=c0d05266-34bb-41d2-b06c-b0c3ede82a33&k=82694

[SSLL]

From: http://www.canada.com:80/ottawacitizen/n...d3a1-eccf-4952-ac4e-ab010e9f6a83&rfp=dta
_______________

RadioShack to close last nine Canadian stores

Vito Pilieci, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Saturday, December 09, 2006
RadioShack Corp. is pulling the plug on nine corporately owned stores in Canada, less than a year after they opened for business.
The U.S. electronics retailer says the outlets will close by January.
The stores were opened in a rebranding effort by the company in January 2006 in an attempt to reassert a foothold in the Canadian market after severing ties with RadioShack Canada in 2004.
None of the stores are located in the Ottawa area. Those to be closed are located in Edmonton, Calgary and Sherwood Park, Alta., as well as Burlington, Mississauga, Pickering and Scarborough, Ont.
The company said the stores are being closed so it can refocus resources on business in the United States.
The closing of the stores will not affect The Source by Circuit City, which was formerly RadioShack Canada. The Source was formed after a lengthy legal battle with the U.S. retailer over the name RadioShack.
RadioShack Canada's former owner was InterTAN Canada Ltd.
InterTAN licensed the named RadioShack to be used in Canada, but when its more than 900 Canadian stores were bought by giant U.S. electronics retailer Circuit City in May 2004, the licensing agreement ended and the name of the stores had to be changed.

[SSLL]

From: http://www.insidetoronto.ca/to/scarborough/story/3818814p-4417594c.html?loc=scarborough
______________

Condominium shopping centres slated for north Scarborough
Steeles Avenue from Kennedy to Markham seen as tourist zone

MIKE ADLER
Dec. 19, 2006

The condominium concept brought many people to Scarborough to live. Now it's going to revolutionize shopping here.
Built in the mid-1990s on the north side of Steeles Avenue in Markham, Pacific Mall, which still bills itself as the "largest indoor Asian mall in North America" brought in a novel idea: its 400 stores are individually owned.

But two new condominium malls, each hoping become a regional shopping destination bigger than Pacific Mall, are planned for the Scarborough side of Steeles.

Backers say their hundreds of stores, some as small as a closet-sized 90 square feet, offer condo-mall shoppers a level of comparison shopping the regular retail malls lack. Shops of a few hundred square feet are also a business opportunity, they add, for immigrant entrepreneurs without the funds to lease a larger store or those who have been shunned by retail malls as an unknown quantity.

"The pattern of shopping has changed totally," said Lawrence Wong, CFO and a partner in The Landmark, a condo mall on Steeles near Middlefield Road whose 700-store Phase 1 is approved and may be open by winter 2008.

Condo store owners "don't need a big profit margin, so the shoppers can enjoy a unique product at a lower price," Wong said in an interview last week.

Meanwhile, a former Canadian Tire just east of Kennedy Road and nearly across from Pacific Mall, has been converted to a 281-store condo mall, Splendid China, whose grand opening is scheduled for Feb. 17, Chinese New Year's Eve.

And though the city has concerns about its effect on local traffic - and is being forced to fight the mall developer at the Ontario Municipal Board - Splendid China plans a second phase of 700 stores on what is now its parking lot. That larger phase is already 95 per cent sold, said Paul Jone, owner of Visar Realty Inc. and broker for the project. The parking lot, he added, would be replaced by a four-storey garage.

Jone, who has worked six years on Splendid China, doesn't see the mall as competitor for Pacific Mall and its companion on the Markham side, Market Village.

"We will be complimentary and beneficial to each other," he said this week, predicting the busy stretch of Steeles from Kennedy to Markham Road will attract tourists and "keep the area booming."

The city, which has heard nearby Heathwood residents say Splendid China would invite shoppers to cut through their neighbourhood, has not finished a report city council needs to make a decision on Phase 2. It's been waiting for the developer to revise a traffic study, said Renrick Ashby, senior planner on the file.

"Lots of stuff needs to happen" before staff can recommend approval, he said.

Splendid China, however, has wasted no time in sending the stalled Phase 2 plan to the OMB, which could force a decision. A pre-hearing is set for February.

Jone, however, said Splendid China's plans for traffic control are "excellent" and include extending Redlea Avenue from Steeles to Passmore Avenue by January 2008 and opening Silver Star Boulevard to Passmore as well.

The Landmark, which like Splendid China will come with a food court and several restaurants, is also relying on Passmore to channel traffic. Its backers are also paying to extend State Crown Boulevard to Steeles as well as widen sections of Steeles and Markham Road, Wong said.

Now being prepared for construction on what was mainly vacant farmland on the edge of an industrial zone, The Landmark - "a shopper's paradise, an investor's precious gemstone" - had the support of local politicians before it received approvals this summer.

Then-Ward 41 Councillor Bas Balkissoon (Scarborough-Rouge River) said he heard about 18 months ago from The Landmark (Canada) Inc. president Charles Chan, not knowing Chan had been his neighbour for seven years. At a meeting over coffee, Chan asked Balkissoon, who is now Scarborough-Rouge River MPP, for advice "on how to get his mall built," Balkissoon recalled at a press conference this month.

He said he convinced Chan to have the condo mall auction a store to raise money for the Yee Hong Community Wellness Foundation and provide a second store free as an information booth for the Yee Hong Centres for Geriatric Care.

The mall "will finish off an area in Ward 41 that has sat vacant for years" and change the face of Scarborough, Balkissoon said.

Chin Lee, the current councillor who said he was also at the meeting with Chan, voiced his own approval. "The community itself benefits and we all come out winners," he said.

The Landmark will be "divided into colourful theme zones" for different items, which Wong said is an innovation from Asia that lets shoppers better compare products and price.

English will be mandatory on all mall signs, he added. "We want to make everyone come in, not just Chinese."

The Landmark, whose promotional video says its "vision is even more ambitious than the shopping paradise we have suggested" hasn't finished deciding what to build for a Phase 2, Wong said.

But he added the mall developer is part of a larger association called the Tapscott Landowners Group, which hopes to build on up to a million square feet of retail in the area, with The Landmark covering half a million.

The mall could also see satellite buildings housing large retailers that are popular with customers of all backgrounds, Wong suggested.

"Our dream is, Let the West meet the East."

[SSLL]

From: http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/finan...d75d-cdd7-4fbf-815f-0d1b76465f35&k=44212
________________

Yankee Doodle retail

Sean Silcoff, Financial Post
Published: Saturday, December 23, 2006
Without a doubt, we are really seeing the Americanization of the Canadian retail sector. If they haven't bought it (The Bay), they've built it (Home Depot). And with the world awash in private-equity money and cheap credit, more potential foreign buyers have put Canadian retailers on their radar screens.
In October, 2000, Mitch Goldhar, Wal-Mart's Canadian real estate developer, declared that within five years "all retailers serving Canada on a national basis will be foreign owned."
His timing may have been off, but Mr. Goldhar nailed the trend. In the past six years, foreigners have bought some of Canada's biggest and best-known retailers, including Dollarama, Future Shop, yoga wear merchant Lululemon Athletica and, this year, Hudson's Bay Co., lingerie seller La Senza and jeans maker and retailer Buffalo Group.
If they haven't bought, they have built. New entrants include European banners Zara and H & M and U.S. favourites Pottery Barn, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Build-A-Bear Workshop. Some, such as Apple, have been awed by the high volumes in their Canadian outlets. More chains are coming, including Lowe's and Crate and Barrel.
Much has obviously changed since Wal-Mart and Home Depot entered Canada in 1994, not least that Canadians have learned to expect better from their retailers.
Now that shoppers have become better served, investors are starting to benefit as well. Thanks to the eye-popping sums paid, in particular, $1-billion for Dollarama in 2004 and $710-million for La Senza this fall, and the strength of the Canadian economy, retail has ended its long drought as one of Canada's most moribund sectors for investors.
Across the country, merchants have begun doing the back-of-theenvelope calculations to figure out what they could get for their businesses if they were to sell or take on partners. That is, if a slew of eager private equity firms and investment banks haven't beaten them to it.
"I don't think there is a retailer in Canada who wouldn't sell" for the price that lingerie merchant La Senza received from Victoria's Secret owner, The Limited Brands, said one senior retail industry veteran in Montreal.
That deal valued La Senza -- which operates 318 stores in Canada and has 327 licensed outlets in 39 countries -- at an impressive 9.3- times the ratio of the firm's enterprise value to operating profit.
Receiving Christmas cards is nice, and gift cards are even nicer, judging by their growing popularity
way of the U.S. mass merchant juggernauts, honing in on niches they could dominate. Some managed to break the curse of Canadian retailers past by thriving beyond Canada's borders. Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. has grown into the second-largest independent convenience store operator in the United States, while La Senza and shoe merchant Aldo Group have franchised stores around the world. Bath and beauty retailer Fruits & Passions has franchised 60 outlets in Asia, Europe and Mexico (in addition to its 90 in Canada) and sold its branded products to some of the world's great department stores, including Harrods and Nordstrom.
But the retailers marking these recent successes, which have put Canadian retail on the global map, are also the very ones most likely to have foreign owners calling the shots before long. Jean Hurteau, chief executive of Fruits & Passion's parent company, shrugs off that likelihood. After selling 30% of the company to Quebec's investment arm this year, "I would say [for our next round of financing] it's definitely going to be an international investor," he said. "We need someone that will bring that international dimension and access to real estate."
And in the end, is that such a bad thing? Canadian merchants are cashing out, shoppers are getting more choice, and space once occupied by lumbering, poorly performing domestic retailers has been released to better shops. Save for the odd Canadian sentimentalist, the changes have been good for everyone.
Many industry observers say the deal is unique as it pairs two rivals with complementary operations, giving Victoria's Secret a platform to expand globally. At the same time, however, it points to huge value premiums Canada's "best-in-class" retailers could fetch if sold. "There are idle conversations going on," the source said. "Everybody gets turned on" by the La Senza deal. "This will vibrate. There are people in play."
One top Montreal mergers and acquisitions lawyer said "investment bankers are calling the retailers and effectively giving them the message there has never been a better time than today to sell out. I know that for a fact. If they haven't been calling, some of the retailers have been calling and saying, 'What can I get for my company?' "
One firm that is on the block is fashion retailer Le Chateau. The Montreal-based company traded hands this week in the range of $58 to $60 per share. But a buyout offer similar to that for La Senza could value Le Chateau for as high as $80 a share, Versant Partners analyst Neil Linsdell said.
Other retailers say they've fielded far more calls lately from possible buyers talking of similar premiums to be had. The president of one growing Canadian fashion retailer with more than 200 stores said the company used to get "about one call a year" from potential suitors. Since early 2005, "we get a call once every couple of weeks. They probably literally walk through malls trying to figure out who to pick up the phone and call."
Many merchants, including Stephen Bebis, chief executive of the 28-store Golf Town Income Fund, say their firms aren't for sale. But they openly talk about likely suitors, which suggests they are open to deals, at the right price. Shares of Markham, Ont.-based Golf Town, said Mr. Bebis, would "definitely be selling for more than we are today" if a suitor was in the wings, "Without question, Dick's Sporting Goods would be a perfect strategic partner" for Golf Town, which had $215-million in sales in its last four quarters.
Pittsburgh-based Dick's recently paid 11-times operating earnings for fellow U.S. retailer Golf Galaxy. At that multiple, Golf Town, which is more profitable than Golf Galaxy, would sell for more than a 50% premium to its recent value of $13 per unit.
Others are equally coy. "If someone were to make an approach with numbers we thought were appropriate, it would gain our attention and we would look at it," said Jeremy Reitman, CEO of Montreal-based fashion retailer Reitmans Canada Ltd., one of Canada's largest specialty chains. "I think there have been some very interesting deals out there."
The internationalization of Canadian retail has only begun. More U.S. chains are on their way. And with the world awash in private-equity money and cheap credit, more potential foreign buyers have put Canadian retailers on their radar screens.
"The reality is you've got some phenomenal retailers," said Tom
Financial Post [email protected] Stemberg, former CEO of Staples Inc., and now a venture partner with Lexington, Mass.-based Highland Capital Partners, which paid US$93-million along with another U.S. private equity firm in 2005 for a 48% stake in Vancouver-based Lulu lemon. "I spend an awful lot of my time in Canada looking for opportunities."
The retailers and buyout firms see a Canadian economy that is strong -- and possibly more resilient than the economy of the United States, where consumer spending could be hit by a fall in housing prices. Private-equity firms have already done a round of buyouts there, but in Canada there remains a healthy complement of merchants that are expanding and carry valuations that are lower than their U.S. peers. The retail sector is also less competitive than it is in the United States, which has more stores per capita. Meanwhile, Canadian department stores have not roared back to health as they have to the south. As a result, there are many opportunities for the picking.
"There is definitely an eagerness to invest in the sector, but it's not a blind interest," said Kevin Callaghan, managing director of Boston-based Berkshire Partners, which put $100- million last year in Aritzia, a Vancouver- based women's apparel chain. "People want to buy the winners. It's in markets like these that good companies are available."
All that is missing are Canadian buyers. There are few private-equity firms of any consequence in Canada. That doesn't bother Mr. Stemberg much. "There are more ideas than there is capital up there," he said. "I don't know why, but I like it."
It's hard to believe these people are talking about Canada. In the dark ages of retail, before the arrival of Costco, Wal-Mart and Home Depot in the early 1990s, shopping in Canada was a depressing experience, dominated by large, datedmass merchants. Being underserved seemed like a civic duty. But many of the retailers that either came of age or began in the Wal-Mart era are today's savviest and fastest-growing players, including La Senza, Dynamite Group (operator of the Dynamite and Garage banners), Dollarama and handbag merchant Bentley. They learned quickly to get out of the

[malek]

The Reitmans group plans on opening 40 new locations and closing 11 less profitables ones.

They run : Reitmans, Smart Set, RW & Co, Thyme, Cassis, Pennington and Addition-Elle with 900 stores in Canada.


-----------------------
Reitmans garde le cap sur le Canada
27 décembre 2006 - 17h26
Presse Canadienne

La chaîne de magasins Reitmans (RET) continuera, en 2007, à cibler les Canadiennes de la classe moyenne en leur offrant des vêtements appropriés pour leur vie de tous les jours, a fait savoir le pdg de l'entreprise, Jeremy Reitman.

Cette stratégie a déjà permis à l'entreprise de tirer son épingle du jeu face à ses concurrents, dans un contexte où les habitudes de consommation des Canadiennes sont en pleine évolution.

Au troisième trimestre de 2006, Reitmans a enregistré des ventes de 258,6 millions $, une hausse de 8,4 pour cent par rapport à la même période l'an dernier.

«Nous laissons la haute couture et les vêtements vraiment dispendieux aux autres, comme Holt Renfrew et les boutiques spécialisées, a expliqué M. Reitman. Nous avons toujours basé nos affaires sur la classe moyenne et moyenne inférieure, parce que c'est là qu'on peut faire des profits et qu'on retrouve le plus grand nombre d'acheteurs.»

En plus de la bannière Reitmans, l'entreprise est derrière Smart Set, RW & Co (qui offre aussi des vêtements pour hommes), Thyme (qui offre des vêtements de maternité), Cassis (une nouvelle chaîne pour consommatrices d'âge mûr) ainsi que Pennington et Addition-Elle (qui offre des vêtements de taille forte).

Reitmans compte quelque 900 magasins au Canada, mais aucun aux États-Unis.

M. Reitman a indiqué que 40 nouveaux magasins pourraient être créés en 2007 tandis qu'une dizaine d'autres, moins profitables, fermeraient. Il a toutefois refusé de donner plus de détails.

Il a aussi révélé que l'entreprise étudie diverses acquisitions, même si elle «n'est pas encore rendue là».

«Il y a peut-être cinq entreprises que nous pourrions acheter d'ici cinq ans», a-t-il dit.

L'analyste John Winter, de la firme torontoise John Winter Associates, croit que la décision de Reitmans de ne pas tenter de percer le marché américain est «excellente», compte tenu de tous les défis que cela représenterait.

«Ils ont un beau petit créneau et ils l'exploitent bien», a dit M. Winter.

M. Reitman ne se sent par ailleurs pas menacé par le géant américain Wal-Mart.

«Je pense que psychologiquement, les consommateurs aiment la marchandise de Wal-Mart mais qu'ils ne le perçoivent certainement pas comme un magasin de mode», a-t-il expliqué.

M. Reitman ajoute que son entreprise compte environ 250 magasins dans des centres commerciaux où Wal-Mart est aussi présent, et que cette présence génère pour eux un achalandage profitable.

Mercredi à Toronto, le titre de Reitman a terminé en baisse de 0,19 $, à 21,94 $.

[Arriviste]

It's times like these that I wish we had be taught to speak french throughout our education in Alberta, not just untill 6th grade. French is a fog that I can barely see through.

[malek]

Reitmans is eyeing the US, a specialist says they'll have trouble against the walmart giant.

M. Reitmans answers, that 250 of his stores are nearby a walmart and profit from the walmart traffic.

[malek]

Reitmans goes for middle-class women who shop, forgets about high-end fashion

Published: Wednesday, December 27, 2006 | 3:28 PM ET

Canadian Press: LUANN LASALLE


MONTREAL (CP) - Clothes designed for real life, not the runway.
That's the philosophy of Reitmans (Canada) Ltd. (TSX:RET.A) reflected in its humorous TV commercials, which show women mocking glamorous poses and living regular lives in Reitmans clothes. Even while giving short shrift to high-end clothes, the Montreal-based company racked up third-quarter sales of $258.6 million, an increase of 8.4 per cent from the same period a year ago.

It's aiming for the pocketbooks of middle-class Canadian women as it competes with other specialty stores for growth in a changing retail landscape.

"We've left the haute couture and the really high-priced stuff to the others like Holt Renfrew and the specialty boutiques that are around," said CEO Jeremy Reitman.

"We've always built our business on the middle and the lower middle because that's where the money is, that's where the people are and that's where the broad base of customers are."

In addition to the Reitmans banner, the company operates Smart Set, RW & Co. (which also sells some men's fashions), Thyme (maternity clothes), Cassis (new banner for mature boomers) and plus-sized Penningtons and Addition-Elle with a total of almost 900 stores across Canada. The company doesn't operate in the United States.

About 40 new stores could open in 2007, while as many as nine unprofitable locations could close, Reitman said, without specifying which would open or close. Fifty-five new stores opened this year.

Reitman also said he was instrumental in bringing up-to-moment fashion store Zara from Spain to Canada and had a five-year relationship with the chain before that.

The family-run Reitmans, which celebrated its 80 anniversary this year after being founded by Reitman's grandparents, bills itself as Canada's largest specialty retailer.

But despite his family's retail heritage, Reitman says, "I'm not a major shopper myself," adding he "doesn't want to freeze walking from store-to-store in a plaza."

Reitman says the TV ads, now in their second year, for the Reitmans division have boosted sales.

"They like the fashions, the value is extraordinary," he said in an interview at the company's headquarters. "Canadians by nature are fairly thrifty and it's our heritage, our several heritages (to be thrifty)."

He said he's also considering future acquisitions but "we're not quite there yet."

"There may be very well five different businesses that we can perhaps acquire in the relatively near future within the next five years," Reitman said.

He notes how the Canadian retail landscape has changed.

"The major shift that we have experienced over the years is the decline of the department store. And as a result of the decline of the department store. the specialty chain - such as ours and La Senza, to name two - have grown their market share and grown their businesses," he said.

La Senza Corp., (TSX:LSZ), a Montreal-based lingerie seller, recently struck a deal to be bought for $710 million by the U.S. owner of the Victoria's Secret chain. Limited Brands (NYSE:LTD), based in Columbus, Ohio.

Retail analyst John Winter said Reitmans hasn't overestimated the affluence of its market.

"They have a nice niche and they exploit it," said Winter, of Toronto-based John Winter Associates.

Staying out of the United States is an "excellent move" with all of the challenges in the U.S., Winter added.

Reitman doesn't believe that fashion by U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) will affect his sales.

"Psychologically, I think most women, most consumers, like Wal-Mart for the offerings it has but it's not a fashion store by the wildest imagination."
Reitman said his company has about 250 stores in Wal-Mart anchored shopping centres in Canada and finds that Wal-Mart brings in shoppers, which helps other retailers on the site. "We've been very successful with Wal-Mart."

Despite the changing landscape, Reitmans recently reported a rise in third-quarter profits, to $23.4 million from a year-earlier $19.2 million, on strong sales growth and raised its quarterly dividend by 14.3 per cent.
Reitmans started its Smart Set banner in 1970, catering to 20-to 30-year-olds, and RW & Co. in 1999, for younger women with a target age of 24.

And last August, the company launched the Cassis banner, which aims at the baby boomer.

It acquired Penningtons, for plus-sized women, in 1995 and Dalmys (Canada) Ltd. in 1996. In 2002, Reitmans bought Shirmax Fashions Ltd., which includes plus-sized Addition-Elle and Thyme maternity stores.
Shares in Reitmans were trading at $21.98, down 15 cents, Wednesday afternoon on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

[Taller Better]

I think it is wise of Reitmans and Smartset, etc... to stay out of the States. Let's face it, their clothing is not very attractive, that is why they are trying to appeal to women who don't care about fashion or about the way they look.
They are kind of the Marks Work Wearhouse of women's clothing.

[harls]

Plus-size clothing is a growing industry.