THUNDER BAY — A local business was blindsided by the news that the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) has filed for bankruptcy and plans to liquidate and close most stores nationwide.
Warrior Office Supplies now has around $80,000 worth of unpaid invoices by the HBC, according to the business owner Jason Thompson.
These invoices resulted from a single transaction between the businesses that provided the HBC with printer paper, or thermal rolls, for their debit and credit machines.
“We have multiple businesses, but the one in particular related to HBC was our office supply business,” said Thompson, the president and CEO of Superior Strategies Inc., the parent company of Warrior Office Supplies.
Superior Strategies Inc. is a dealer and distributor for Hamster of Expo, Canada’s largest office supply company. It serves customers locally, provincially and across the nation.
Thompson said he had to pay upfront in full for the product that was sold through the transaction with the HBC.
“I had to dip into my savings to access the cash to purchase the product before I left the warehouse to ship to the various HBC locations,” said Thompson.
Initially, he explained he thought the transaction was a tremendous opportunity.
“We negotiated payment terms, all that good stuff, proceeded with the transaction under the assumption that through our discussions and dealings that, we would be paid, but that never happened,” said Thompson.
How anybody could do that is beyond him, said Thompson. It's basically jeopardizing his business and his dream, he added.
“At the end of the day, it honestly feels like the Hudson's Bay Company and their team that were dealing directly with me… I’m assuming they had inklings of what was going on financially within their companies but had no concern about the fact that they’re dealing with a small Indigenous company,” said Thompson.
“And basically, how I feel is they dug into my pocket, took the money that I put away from years of working and life savings that I was putting away from my kids and their college (and) university funds and to grow our businesses. They basically went in (and) took my money without any hesitation.”
Thompson said they have been working hard and are very fortunate that they built a great brand and have a good company.
“Things are going very positive for us, but the challenge with us is like many businesses is cash flow, monitoring cash flow, right? We work with some large companies and organizations within in Canada that have 90, 120-day payment terms, right? So, having our cash tied up like that is challenging, right?” said Thompson.
“So, I’m going to go to the bank, which is costing me money to borrow, so on and so forth, so it’s adding additional challenges to our everyday business.”
He said he is still holding onto hope that something can be resolved and they can get something back, but said they’re obviously “very disappointed.”
He explained he had never really gone through a process like this before and it was his first time dealing with something like this.
“I’m really hoping it works out in our favour. I’m hoping Hudson's Bay is able to come to an agreement with the folks that are handling the bankruptcy so some type of arrangement is made and we potentially get our outstanding invoice looked after,” said Thompson.
In the meantime, he added he really hopes that people who hear this message lend their support, get the message out and at the end of the day, if they’re looking for some office supplies supporting a Canadian and locally owned company, they’re here to help.
“Again, we’re going to recover from this. We’re going to rebound from this, but it is definitely challenging and obviously, we got to work harder and do what we have to do to grow our business,” said Thompson.
