BJ IPO

Helllllooooo my beautiful friends. I am back with another IPO article! Man, we are just cranking them out aren’t we? Not another Chinese IPO this time, but a fun one none the less. Are you ready? I actually had never heard about this company before seeing this on my IPO watch list. But after looking into them, it looks like there are none in Tennessee so I don’t feel as bad. Without further ado let’s unbox this giant! What is this company you may ask? It’s BJ’s wholesale!

BJ’s Wholesale was originally founded in 1984 first known as Zayre which was a discount department store. They headquartered in Westborough, MA and it’s stores are located all along the East Coast. Cool fact time! In 1988 Zayre sold this name to a rival company name Ames and later that year TJX companies were born! TJX as in TJ Maxx, HomeGoods, Winners and more! How cool is that!? Just another reason to like them because I am a TJX brand addict. Ask Jerremy, 75% of all of my shopping is done there! But TJ Maxx wouldn’t hold onto them forever. In August 1997 BJ’s spun off to become their own independent company! Which brings us to current day. Right now BJ’s has over 210 stores and is located in 16 states.

There certainly isn’t a gap in the Wholesale industry. BJ’s most notable competitors are the giants Costco and Sams clubs, which I am almost positive you have heard of. The biggest difference between BJ’s and it’s top competitors is most simply the size. As I mentioned above, BJ’s has a little over 210 stores. On the other hand, Sam has 597 and Costco a whopping 750. One thing to be considered in BJ’s has isolated itself to the East Coast. I was not able to find any information on if they plan on changing that but that is definitely something that may stunt their growth as the East Coast itself is not massive. As well as Costco and Sams Club have already inserting themselves into that market and are bigger than BJ’s itself already.

Onto how BJ’s makes money. Whole sellers in general are known for charging a yearly membership fee to purchase goods at their store. All other is made by selling the goods within their stores. Duh. ;P At the end of the fiscal year on Feb 3, 2018, total revenue for BJ’s was $12,754,589,000. In comparison, Costco dominated with a $126,172,000,000 almost 10 times more than BJ’s. Sams Club also impressed with $59,216,000,000 at the end of the fiscal year. All this being said, BJ’s is small cookies compared to the other two. Interestingly enough, BJ's was actually traded on the stock market before up until 2011 when it was purchased by a private equity firm.

My thoughts? We can always make money. I can actually foresee a buyout occurring one day. I just don’t know if BJ’s has the umph to pull ahead and become competitive enough with the largest of it’s kind. If I was looking to get into one of the Wholesale companies I would just go with something like Costco. But let’s look at the charts anyways!

Daily

Well that is all for me! It has been a fun one. I am still looking for suggestions and would love to hear from you about which ones YOU are interested in! You rock!

- Ashley

"Remember there's no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end." - Scott Adams