F. W. Woolworth Company - Non-American Retail Users of The Woolworth Name

Non-American Retail Users of The Woolworth Name

• Woolworth Canada was the Canadian unit of F.W. Woolworth founded in the 1920s and based in North York, Ontario. In addition to the Woolworth stores, other banners of Woolworth Canada included Woolco, The Bargain! Shop, Kinney, Foot Locker, Northern Reflections, Northern Getaway, Northern Traditions, Silk & Satin and Randy River. The division continued to be called Woolworth Canada even after the last stores under the Woolworth nameplate disappeared from Canada in 1994. Woolworth Canada was eventually renamed Venator Group Canada in 1998 and finally Foot Locker Canada in 2001.
• Woolworths Group plc originally was the British unit of F.W. Woolworth's, but operated independently as a separate company from 1982, running stores in the UK, Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey. On November 26, 2008 Woolworth's Group plc announced that they were in too much debt to maintain their outgoing payments. The remaining British Woolworth's stores closed by January 6, 2009, with the loss of almost 30,000 jobs.
• Woolworths Limited is the largest retail corporation in Australia, operating a variety of supermarket and other retail chains in Australia and New Zealand. The name "Woolworths" was legally taken to capitalize on the F.W. Woolworth name since they did not do business in Australia and had not registered the trademark there but is in no other way connected to the U.S. or U.K. Woolworths.
• Woolworths is an upmarket retail chain in South Africa selling goods of a comparable nature to Marks & Spencer stores in the United Kingdom. The South African company also operates stores in Bahrain, Botswana, Kenya, Lesotho, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
• Woolworth GmbH was the German unit of F.W. Woolworths, but has operated independently since 1998 as a result of the original company's change of focus.
• Woolworth Mexicana operates a chain of small variety stores in Mexico, sold in December 1997 to Control Dinamico S.A. by Foot Locker Inc now is a subsidiary of Grupo Comercial Control, S.A. de C.V.
• Woolworth's operates independently in Bridgetown Barbados, having split from the British branch in 1982. It was established in the 1950s, stocking goods shipped from Britain.