Lord and Taylor Coming to Canada?

Photo:Mark Lennihan/Associated Press

After reports that NRDC, the owner of Lord and Taylor bought out 80% of the Hudson Bay Company on July 16^th, 2008 the rumour mill hasn’t stopped churning out suspicions that Lord and Taylor will be moving to Canada. I for one think Canada needed the extra touch of class, they really only have one department store as high end as Lord and Taylor, and Holt Renfrew definitely needs the competition (even though L&T may be a couple notches below it on the high end scale). Some may argue that the Bay is one of Canada’s high end department stores, which could be why it’s so fitting that Lord and Taylor bought them out anyway (even though it doesn’t begin to compare). Cardinal rule of business: stomp out the competition before it even sees you coming! Now if we could get Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman up here too then we’d be talking. Will NRDC pull a Macy’s and replace every Bay with a Lord and Taylor like Macy’s did when they bought out Hecht’s? Or will they do some crazy compartmentalizing and have The Bay, Zeller’s and L&T all in one store? I hope not! We’ll just have to wait and see, but I for one am always happy when American stores make the move across the border, it just makes Canadian shopping all the more interesting.