Wait – Target is Merging With Kmart?! Here’s What You Need to Know
I was mindlessly scrolling across the internet last tonight and I bumped into a headline: "Target and Kmart Confirm $10 Billion Merger."
Wait -- what?!
Target and Kmart? Isn't that like putting the engine of a Yugo into a Lamborghini?
Why on earth would Target and Kmart merge? And for $10 billion?!
That doesn't make any sense.
Well, as it turns out, that headline is true -- to an extent.
Kmart still exists
For starters, if you think every Kmart in America has closed, you are incorrect.
A grand total of three remain -- yes, three. One in Florida, one in New Jersey, and one in New York (the Kmart in NJ is pretty active on Facebook if you want to look around their store).
And its peak in 1994, there were nearly 2,500 Kmart stores across the country. Now there are three.
Kmart's financial struggles over the years have been well-documented, so I'll just say this: Kmart basically got crushed by Walmart and Target. There's a lot more to the story than just that, but you get the idea.
- LAST NEW KMART: The Last New Kmart to Open in America Closed in 2019
Target continues to grow
On the flip side, regardless of the chain being in the news lately for any number of social issues, Target continues to do quite well.
At last check, they had some 440,000 employees, nearly 2,000 stores, and over $109 billion in revenue last year.
Quite different than Kmart.
So why would they merge?
Don't just read the headline
Here's where actually reading an article becomes very important instead of just the headline -- and then doing your own research.
As reported by ABC News (ABC News in Australia, not ABC News in America), Target and Kmart in Australia are merging in a A$10 billion deal (Australian dollars, not American dollars).
Ohhhh...
As it turns out, Kmart in Australia is still extremely popular -- hundreds of stores, billions in yearly sales, and thousands of employees.
Kmart's owners in America got Kmart stores up and running in the land down under back in the 1960s and, over the years, eventually walked away from that venture.
Meanwhile, Target in Australia is not related to Target in America except for the fact that they pay to use that name and logo down there.
They also seem to put a period after the word "Target" for some reason.
So it's those two Australian-based chains, which are already owned by the same company, that are officially and/or more efficiently joining forces, not the Target and Kmart chains based in the United States.
