Dollar Tree purchased Family Dollar in 2015. With a combined 15,500+ locations throughout the United States and Canada, is the company remaining profitable despite recent controversies?
Author’s Note
This article is based on corporate postings and accredited media reports. All linked information within this article is fully-attributed to the following outlets: DollarTreeInfo.com, Wikipedia.org. BusinessWire.com, BusinessInsider.com, Fortune 500, The Commercial Appeal, OSHA.gov, and MarcoTrends.net.
Introduction
According to DollarTreeInfo.com, Dollar Tree and Family Dollar continue to operate under their original names, despite the 2015 purchase: Dollar Tree, Inc. is a leading operator of discount variety stores that has served North America for more than thirty years. The company operates 15,500+ stores across the 48 contiguous states and five Canadian provinces, supported by a coast-to-coast logistics network and more than 193,000 associates.
For a comprehensive overview of Dollar Tree, Inc., the owner of both Dollar Tree and Family Dollar, see Wikipedia page here.
From Wikipedia: Dollar Tree is an American multi-price-point chain of discount variety stores. Headquartered in Chesapeake, Virginia, it is a Fortune 500 company and operates 15,115 stores throughout the 48 contiguous U.S. states and Canada. Its stores are supported by a nationwide logistics network of 24 distribution centers. Additionally, the company operates stores under the name of Dollar Bills, as well as a multi-price-point variety chain under the Family Dollar banner.
In the last week, NewsBreak published two other stories of mine on the $1.00 discount store phenomenon. See here for “Plans For Dollar General Closings in 2022,” and here for “Family Dollar Texas Closings in 2022.”
As excerpted from the latter article, via a link also attributed to Wikipedia: In June 2014, activist investor and major shareholder Carl Icahn demanded that Family Dollar be immediately put up for sale. On July 28, 2014, Dollar Tree announced that it would buy Family Dollar for $8.5 billion. The sale delivered a windfall to the company's biggest shareholder Carl Icahn, who acquired his 9.4 percent stake in June 2014. On January 22, 2015, Family Dollar shareholders approved the Dollar Tree bid.
My latter article of the two linked above, though, also links a press release from Dollar Tree, Inc. that bears repeating here. From BusinessWire.com, dated February 18, 2022: Family Dollar, Inc. is initiating a voluntary retail level product recall of certain products regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that were stored and shipped to 404 stores from Family Dollar Distribution Center 202 in West Memphis, Arkansas from January 1, 2021 through the present due to the presence of rodents and rodent activity at Family Dollar Distribution Center 202.
Those stores, however, also temporarily closed for those very reasons.
Is the chain in any danger of closing, as a targeted Google search asks?
Let us explore further.
Dollar Tree, 2022
On March 3, 2022, BusinessInsider.com published “Dollar Tree, Family Dollar Threatened With Boycott Over Unclean Stores Following Distribution Center Rodent Infestation,” which stated: Community leaders in Tennessee are threatening to boycott Dollar Tree if it fails to properly clean its stores after a rodent infestation was discovered at a distribution center in Arkansas, which supplies its Family Dollar chain. The Memphis Baptist Ministerial Association held a press conference on Tuesday to discuss the plan of action if Dollar Tree's discount stores in the area are not properly cleaned and waste disposed of, local news site The Commercial Appeal reported.
The recent threats of Memphis boycotts were followed by calls to action elsewhere.
Further, in an updated Mashed.com piece from two years earlier (July, 2020), entitled “The Untold Truth of Dollar Tree,” it was stated then that many of the company’s stores were not only fingered for “hazardous conditions,” but that employee pay was immensely low.
Excerpted from the piece: In early March 2020, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) fined Dollar Tree for its overwhelming health and safety violations in locations all across the East Coast. OSHA inspectors have fined the company more than half a million dollars for violations at one Massachusetts location and about $300,000 dollars for its violations at one in Pennsylvania.
Again, a targeted internet search reveals long-term issues with stores under the Dollar Tree, Inc. banner, but that said, are they in any apparent danger of permanently closing their doors?
In a word, “no.”
The company’s 2021 revenue was $25.51 billion. See MacroTrends.net financial profile of the company here, which also lists the following:
- Dollar Tree revenue for the quarter ending January 31, 2022 was $7.081B, a 4.62% increase year-over-year.
- Dollar Tree revenue for the twelve months ending January 31, 2022 was $26.321B, a 3.18% increase year-over-year.
- Dollar Tree annual revenue for 2022 was $26.321B, a 3.18% increase from 2021.
- Dollar Tree annual revenue for 2021 was $25.509B, a 8.04% increase from 2020.
- Dollar Tree annual revenue for 2020 was $23.611B, a 3.45% increase from 2019.
The company is also highly profitable, which you can read on the same site.
Conclusion
Despite the myriad controversies, Dollar Tree, Inc. only continues to prosper.
Time will tell if the recent controversies prove to have a compounded impact.
Thank you for reading.
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