The TJX Companies, Inc., is an American apparel and home goods company based in
Framingham, Massachusetts. It claims to be the largest international apparel and
home fashions off-price department store chain in the United States. The company
evolved from the Zayre discount department store chain, founded in 1956,
which opened its first branch of T.J.Maxx in 1976 and its first BJ's
Wholesale Club in 1984. In 1988, Zayre sold its nameplate to rival Ames, and
T.J.Maxx was renamed "The TJX Companies, Inc.".
Since 2007, the company's CEO has been Carol Meyrowitz. The corporate
headquarters are located at 770 Cochituate Road in Framingham,
Massachusetts. TJX nameplates
History Stanley Feldberg was one of the 1956
founders of Zayre Corp. He served as president of the company until 1978, and
afterwards remained on the Board of Directors, until he retired in 1989.
Once the company had sold off the "Zayre" name, the company consisted of
its one core remaining store brand, T.J.Maxx. The next year, in 1990, TJX
expanded into an additional store brand division, and at the same time it first
went international, as it entered the Canadian market by acquiring the
five-store Winners chain. Two years later, it launched its third brand,
HomeGoods, in the United States. TJX's expansion beyond North America came in
1994, when the fourth brand division, T.K. Maxx, was founded in the United
Kingdom, and then expanded into Ireland. In 1995, TJX doubled in size when it
acquired Marshalls, its fifth brand. T.J.Maxx and Marshalls later became
consolidated as two brands under a single division, The Marmaxx Group. The
following year, TJX Companies Inc. was added to the Standard & Poor's S&P 500
Composite Index, which consists of 500 of the largest companies in the United
States. TJX launched a sixth brand, A.J. Wright,
in 1998 in the eastern U.S. The brand went national in 2004 when it opened its
first stores in California on the west coast. The company's seventh brand
division, HomeSense, formed in 2001, was a Canadian brand modeled after the
existing US brand, HomeGoods. In 2002, TJX revenue reached almost $12
billion. In mid-2003, TJX acquired an eighth brand division, Bob's Stores,
concentrated in New England. In Canada, TJX began to configure some Winners and
HomeSense stores side-by-side as superstores. The superstores feature
open passageways between them, with dual branding. TJX's revenue in 2003 reached
over $13 billion. TJX began to test the side-by-side superstore model in the
United States in 2004, combining some of each of the two Marmaxx brand stores
with HomeGoods. The company reached 141st position in the 2004 Fortune 500
rankings, with almost $15 billion in revenue. That year was also marked by
the death of retired Zayre founder Stanley Feldberg.
In April 2008, TJX launched the HomeSense brand in the UK, with six
stores opening throughout May. The brand is more upmarket than its Canadian
namesake. Later that year, in August, TJX sold Bob's Stores to Versa Capital
Management and Crystal Capital. In December 2010, TJX announced that the
A.J. Wright stores would be closed, cutting about 4,400 jobs, and that more
than half of them would reopen under other company brands.
In July 2015, TJX acquired the Trade Secret and Home Secret off-price retail
businesses from Australian company Gazal Corporation Limited. The deal will be
completed December 2015. Computer systems intrusion
On January 17, 2007, TJX announced that it was the victim of an unauthorized
computer systems intrusion. It discovered in mid-December 2006 that its
computer systems were compromised and customer data was stolen. The hackers
accessed a system that stores data on credit card, debit card, check, and
merchandise return transactions. The intrusion was kept confidential as
requested by law enforcement. TJX said that it is working with General
Dynamics, IBM and Deloitte to upgrade computer security.
By the end of March 2007, the number of affected customers had reached 45.7
million and has prompted credit bureaus to seek legislation requiring retailers
to be responsible for compromised customer information saved in their
systems. In addition to credit card numbers, personal information such as
social security numbers and driver's license numbers from 451,000 customers
were downloaded by the intruders. The breach was possible due to a non-secure
wireless network in one of the stores. Eleven men have been charged in the
theft, and one has pleaded guilty to numerous charges related to the breach.
One man, Jonathan James, professed his innocence and later committed suicide,
apparently out of the belief that he was going to be indicted.
The alleged ringleader Albert Gonzalez was indicted in August 2009 with
attacking Heartland Payment Systems in which 130 million records were
compromised. Restatement
On February 11, 2000, the company restated the quarterly sales and
earnings of 1999. Notes
Sources Yahoo! Inc.. "TJX: Profile for TJX Cos
Inc.". Yahoo! Finance. Retrieved 2007-01-29.