In the year 1935, all the 179 Canadian Piggly Wiggly shops were also sold to Canada Safeway, which had later merged with Sobeys in the year 2013. The company was then divided into various strategic units and sold to regional grocery chains as well. Saunders reputedly lost almost nine million dollars in the attempted fraud. The Stock Exchange Governors responded by deciding that a corner had been established in the company and had removed the stock from the Board, thereby eventually forcing the company founder to turn over his assets to the banks that had financed his leveraged position. The founder had attempted a squeeze on the substantial short interest in the company stock, by running the share price up from $40 to $120 and profiting by almost millions on paper. The company founder had lost control of Piggly Wiggly in the year 1922 after he lost most of his assets in a lousy stock deal. The company was at its peak success during the year 1932, when it operated more than 2,600 stores along with annual sales of $180 million too. In this self-service format, the customers used to enter the store through a turnstile and chose merchandise while walking through the store’s four aisles of products categories. The company had secured the self-service format and issued franchises to hundreds of grocery retailers for the operation of its stores as well. The company was the first true self-service grocery store in the USA. The founder of the company was Clarence Saunders. The company has been operational for almost 103 years now. Piggly Wiggly was founded in the year 1916.
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