Throwback Thursday is a regular weekly feature in which we dip into the archives of the Hardlines Weekly Report.
Twenty years ago tomorrow, we reported on Sodisco-Howden’s effort to push its newly-acquired Ace banner. The Montreal-based hardlines wholesaler had acquired the shares of Ace Hardware Canada Inc. in February 2003. Nine months later, it announced that it was converting 75 of its customers in Quebec to the Ace banner, which was huge in the U.S., but barely present in Canada.
Sodisco-Howden was trying anything to reverse its poor performance—and was rumoured to be on the block. Indeed, about a year later, on Nov. 10, 2004, it was acquired by Vancouver-based CanWel Building Materials Ltd.
