Progressive Enterprises
New Zealand retail conglomerate
Progressive Enterprises was a New Zealand retail conglomerate, founded in 1949 by the Picot family. It was acquired by Woolworths Group in 2005.
01History
Progressive Enterprises Limited was established on 9 February 1949 by the Picot family.
In 1961, Progressive Enterprises became the parent company to Foodtown. In 1974, Albert Gubay opened the first 3Guys store. Progressive Enterprises purchased the chain in 1987, and rebranded or closed them throughout the 1990s with the store in Hillcrest, Hamilton being one of the last when it closed in January 1998. In 1988, Progressive Enterprises became part of Australian business Coles Myer. In 1992, Coles Myer relaunched Progressive Enterprises onto the New Zealand stock exchange as its own public company.
In May 2001, the company, at this point the owner of Foodtown, Countdown, SuperValue and FreshChoice, made a bid to purchase Woolworths (New Zealand). The merger application was cleared by the Commerce Commission but then withdrawn following court action by rival Foodstuffs. Progressive made another application for the merger in October 2001. The Commerce Commission declined the application in December 2001. Australia's Woolworths Group also expressed interest in acquiring the company. In 2005, Woolworths Group acquired Progressive Enterprises.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Progressive Enterprises”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Fathomly is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Spotted a problem? Tell us.