Target didn’t stock up before closing, court finds

Target Canada does not appear to have bulked up on inventory in the weeks before it sought creditor protection, according to the latest court report on the insolvency.

Figures provided to Ontario Superior Court show that on Dec. 15, a month before it announced it was shutting down all 133 stores in Canada, Target Canada had approximately $623.1 million in inventory in stores and at distribution centres.

That is less than the $650.4 million it had on hand the same day a year earlier, according to the figures in the court document.

The figures also show that Target sold less over the same period in 2014 than it did in 2013. From Dec.15, 2014 to Jan. 15, 2015, total store and distribution centre inventory declined by $96.5-million.

From Dec. 15, 2013 to Jan. 15, 2014, the total store and distribution centre inventory declined by $116.6 million.

“The real question is, when did Target know it was terminating payments?” said Lou Brzezinski, a lawyer with Blaney McMurtry LLP who represents several suppliers.

The report was issued as Target Corp. in the U.S. announced it is laying off 1,700 workers and permanently closing out another 1,400 open positions in the U.S. The announcement puts a number on last week’s news that the company would eliminate several thousand jobs as part of a restructuring aimed at saving $2 billion over the next two years.

Target spokeswoman Molly Snyder says the cuts will come primarily at headquarters locations in the Minneapolis area.

The U.S. job cuts follow Target’s decision to pull out of Canada, shedding about 17,600 employees once the process is complete, following a disastrous foray into the company’s first international market.

In January, Target chief executive Brian Cornell made the decision to close all of the company’s 133 Canadian stores in order to focus on revving up sales in the U.S., where it competes in the department-store segment against Walmart.