White Rose Commercial Early 2000s

From the August 3, 2002 Globe and Mail

A newly incorporated company is buying 24 Ontario stores in the bankrupt White Rose Crafts and Nursery Sales retail chain and seven remaining stores will be closed, the court-appointed receiver announced Friday.

PricewaterhouseCoopers said in a release that White Rose Home and Garden Centres Ltd., a new company, is buying the retail operations. The price was not immediately disclosed and spokesmen could not be reached for more details.

The receiver also said it is close to selling White Rose's two farms.

White Rose Crafts and Nursery Sales filed for bankruptcy June 20 but the chain of garden outlets continued business as usual with its 1,500 employees.

It was the second time in recent years that White Rose had run into financial difficulty.

The Bank of Nova Scotia became White Rose's dominant shareholder in 1999 after the retailer restructured under the Companies Creditors Arrangement Act.

In the 1999 restructuring, the company shut down its stores in Quebec to focus on the Ontario market. But from July of 1999 to January of 2002, White Rose lost $24.7-million, although it made a slight $797,000 profit in the November-January second quarter. It had $10.9-million in bank debt at the end of January.

While the garden centre industry has boomed in recent years as more Canadians focus on their plants and flowers, the business is seasonal and subject to intense competition from big-box retailers such as Home Depot and Canadian Tire.

White Rose tried to offset the seasonal nature of the nursery business by offering craft materials. But even there the company faced increased competition from U.S.-based Michaels Stores Inc.

Established in 1956 by Alexandre Raab, who emigrated from France a few years earlier, White Rose expanded through the following decades, eventually reaching record revenues of $210.5-million in the 1998 financial year.

However, losses mounted that year to $37.9-million. Following the restructuring, White Rose closed its Quebec stores and cut its number of stores in half to 31.

It has outlets in Barrie, Brantford, Burlington, Cambridge, Guelph, Hamilton, Kingston, London, Ottawa, Peterborough, Sault Ste. Marie, St. Catharines, Sarnia, Sudbury, Waterloo, Windsor and several communities in the Toronto area.