North America’s Oldest Firm Meets Its End. Some Argue Its Fate Was Avoidable

Hudson’s Bay Co. ULC, a company that’s so old it once played a central role for goods traders in Britain’s North American colonies, is being stripped for parts.

The retailer, currently under bankruptcy protection in Canada, had devised a plan to rescue six of its 96 stores from liquidation, including its flagship location in one of the biggest shopping hot spots in downtown Toronto. But that plan has run aground and those locations are now being wound up too, and the company’s 17th-century artifacts are being auctioned off.