Of the 17 “uncompetitive” Atmosphere stores set to close over the next four months, 14 will be relocated to occupy space inside existing SportChek locations.
Canadian Tire will shutter 17 Atmosphere stores in Western Canada over the coming months — including some in B.C. — as the company works to fend off the effects of U.S. tariffs.
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The closures were announced as part of the company’s Truth North strategy, which will see it invest $2 billion over four years to restructure the company for growth. The plan is also meant to move the company away from its holding company model to a more agile organization by aggregating the systems and data it holds across all its banners.
Along with Atmosphere, the Toronto-based Canadian Tire Corp. Ltd. also owns SportChek, Party City, Mark’s and Pro Hockey Life.
“We will operate more efficiently and go to market more strategically, harnessing our banners and loyalty system to elevate our scale,” Canadian Tire CEO Greg Hicks promised in a statement.
Of the 17 “uncompetitive” Atmosphere stores set to close over the next four months, 14 will be relocated to occupy space inside existing SportChek locations. Those relocations will happen in phases, according to a spokesperson.
There are currently 10 Atmosphere locations in B.C., including in West Vancouver, Coquitlam, Surrey, Langley, Nanaimo, two in Victoria, and one in Kamloops, Kelowna and Prince George. Alberta boasts four locations in Calgary, four in Edmonton and one each in Red Deer and Banff.
The company hasn’t identified which locations are set to close.
The firm is also working to find new placements for impacted employees. No figure was given for how many workers are affected by the closures.
The company declined an interview but positioned the shift as a way to eliminate silos, redundancies and costly back-office processes.
In addition to the closures, Canadian Tire’s new plan will see it optimize its SportChek portfolio with new concept stores and expand its loyalty program by adding brand partners that issue Canadian Tire money, and strive to acquire more Triangle Mastercard holders.
It will also carry out up to $400 million in share buybacks, doubling its previously disclosed plans to repurchase $200-million worth.
Guiding each part of the strategy will be a restructured leadership team. Susan O’Brien, the company’s chief brand and customer officer, will now serve as its chief transformation officer, while T.J. Flood, the president of its Canadian Tire retail division, will become its COO.
After a search, Canadian Tire will appoint someone to take the chief commercial officer role.
RBC Capital Markets analyst Irene Nattel saw the series of changes as “sensible.”
“If properly executed, the result should be closer connection to (Canadian Tire’s) customer base and a more effective approach to procurement and merchandising, in turn driving stronger revenue growth/profitability,” she wrote in a note to investors.
Thursday’s announcement comes weeks after Canadian Tire Corp. signed an almost $1.3-billion deal to sell sportswear company Helly Hansen to Kontoor Brands, which owns Wrangler, Lee and Rock & Republic.
Hicks has also spent time recently warning of the effects of the tariffs. He has said consumers had started to ease up on the frugality they adopted to cope with the economic slowdown but that progress was likely “substantially erased” when the U.S. started levying tariff threats.
Canadian Tire purchases about 15 per cent of its goods from the U.S. It estimates it could find Canadian suppliers for between 25 and 30 per cent of the items it gets from south of the border.
With files from The Canadian Press