Hide under your blanket! The corporate raiders have arrived!

A company that once opened up the Northwest to exploration and trade will now feature a decidedly southern twang as it tries to re-invent itself in the era of the big box stores.

The Hudson Bay Company, once the Company of Adventurers that defined a nation, and Canada's oldest retailer has been sold off to the highest bidder, an American venture capitalist by the name of Jerry Zucker.

Zucker the 143rd richest man in the United States, has been trying to convince Bay shareholders for a number of months now that his plan to buy the ailing company was the best one and offered the best hope for survival for the Canadian icon.. He first started buying up shares in 2003 and has had the Bay, Zellers and other HBC properties in his sights for a long time now.

His bid at $15.25 a share was accepted by the Board of Directors today, after competing bids by Canadian investors came up far short of the Zucker financial package.

With Zucker the winning suitor, many are waiting for the other shoe to drop for the future of the Bay and its affiliated companies. With little actual experience in the world of retail, there are worries that Zucker merely intends to make the Bay more attractive for a merger with the likes of Sears or Target stores.

In order for that to happen, it’s expected that many of the unprofitable operations under the Bay or Zellers brand may be closed or consolidated Besides the brick and mortar stores of the Bay there are vast tracts of real estate that are held by HBC, Zucker may wish to sell those off, reaping a handy profit from his investment.

Whatever path Zucker will eventually chose one thing is certain. The age old vision of the Bay as a Canadian icon is probably living on borrowed time. It may still stand alone as a symbol of Canada’s birth and the expansion of the nation. But in a world as bottom line as retail sales there’s no more need for romance, it’s the bottom line that tells the tale of success or failure.

Instead the Hudson’s Bay Company may travel down a very different road in the future, making for a path that long ago left behind the remembrances of beaver pelts and Hudson Bay Blankets to the historians and cultural purists.

The retail shopping industry today is a what have you done for me lately kind of world, kind thoughts of age old traditions seemingly have no place anymore in it. Perhaps it’s surprising that the Bay could hang on as long as it has, destined to follow the likes of Woodwards and Eaton’s before it. All dinosaurs of a forgotten age, The Bay was lost in a business plan that didn’t seem to make much sense in today’s retail climate.

In the end the chain’s fate was sealed by its customers, they may have liked the history of the company and its importance to the Canada of yesterday, but when it came time to do the shopping they found that there were many more options available today.