KOHL'S
Kohl's Corporation is an American
department store chain headquartered in the Milwaukee
suburb of Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, operating
as of September 2011, 1,089 stores in 49 states.
In 1998, it entered the S&P 500 list, and is
also listed in the Fortune 500 (#135 in 2010). The
chain was the 24th-largest retailer in the United
States in 2008 in terms of revenue.
Maxwell Kohl, who had previously operated traditional
grocery stores, built his first supermarket in 1946,
the first in what would become a southeastern Wisconsin
chain known as Kohl's Food Stores. In 1962, he started
his first department store, Kohl's Department Store,
in Brookfield, Wisconsin. He positioned Kohl's between
the higher-end department stores and the discounters,
selling everything from candy to engine oil to sporting
equipment.
In 1972 the British-American Tobacco Company's US
retail division, BATUS Inc., bought a controlling
interest in Kohl's Corporation, which at the time
operated 50 grocery stores, six department stores,
three drug stores and three liquor stores. The Kohl
family, led by Allen and Herbert Kohl, continued
to manage the company. The family left the management
in 1979, and Herbert Kohl became a United States
Senator and owner of the Milwaukee Bucks. The firm
then expanded Kohl's presence from 10 to 39 stores
in Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana.
(Source: Wikipedia.org)
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