page_title: Sears Canada
section_title: Divestiture by Simpsons
hierarchical_section_title: Sears Canada / Operations during 20th century / Divestiture by Simpsons
caption_attribution_description: English: Sears in Fairview Mall
context_page_description: Sears Canada Inc. was a publicly-traded Canadian company affiliated with the American-based Sears department store chain. In operation from 1952 until January 14, 2018, and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, the company began as Simpsons-Sears—a joint venture between the Canadian Simpsons department store chain and the American Sears chain—which operated a national mail order business and co-branded Simpsons-Sears stores modelled after those of Sears in the U.S. After the Hudson's Bay Company purchased Simpsons in 1978, the joint venture was dismantled and Hudson's Bay sold its shares in the joint venture to Sears; with Sears now fully owning the company, it was renamed Sears Canada Inc. in 1984. In 1999, Sears Canada acquired the remaining assets and locations of the historic Canadian chain Eaton's. From 2014, Sears Holdings owned a 10% share in the company. ESL Investments was the largest shareholder of Sears Canada.
  In 2016, Sears Canada had a network that included 140 corporate stores, 71 Hometown stores, over 900 catalogue, and online merchandise pick-up locations, 69 Sears Travel offices, and a nationwide repair and service network.
context_section_description: In 1978, Simpsons and Simpsons-Sears put forward a plan to merge their businesses.  This plan had to have the approval of the Foreign Investment Review Agency, as Sears, Roebuck would become the prime shareholder.  Before approval could be attained, the Hudson’s Bay Company made a counter bid and acquired Simpsons Limited.  Simpsons’ shares in Simpsons-Sears taken over by The Bay were eventually sold back to Sears, Roebuck. The company was renamed Sears Canada Inc. in 1984 to reflect its independence.
  The paths of Hudson’s Bay and Sears crossed again in 1991. The Hudson's Bay Company merged its remaining Greater Toronto Simpsons stores into its The Bay division in 1991, and the Simpsons name disappeared from Canada's retail landscape. As a result of this move, Sears Canada took over eight former Simpsons and Bay stores and finally gained a major foothold in Greater Toronto, a market from which it had been excluded by the 1952 agreement with Simpsons. These new stores featured a new 60:40 fashions; hardlines mix and introduced new boutique shop arrangements and fashion lines, such as Le Chateau, Sung, and Rouie.
  Sears announced, "The Store of the Future" in 1983. It represented a complete transformation and remodelling of stores along a new product-focused and customer-friendly merchandising program. The first remodelled store, in Mississauga, Ontario, was unveiled in 1985. Stores would be fully retrofitted over the following three years.
  The Sears Catalogue Club points program began in 1986. The next year, it changed to "Sears Club" to incorporate all the company's trading channels. The points of the program could no longer be earned from June 22, 2017.
caption: The Sears store in Fairview Mall, Toronto, one of the stores acquired from Simpsons in 1991
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