Benchmarking chains of hardware retail stores in Canada

We analyzed the performance of the three main public chains of hardware retail stores in Canada. The study was based on the use of Data Envelopment Analysis. We performed internal and external benchmarking of the firms for the 2000-2010 periods. It occurs that the companies have been impacted by the 2005-2006 collapse of the United States housing bubble which in itself has led to the Canadian forest industry crisis in 2007 and the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008. Further, our analysis shed a light on the numerous attempts that have been made in the recent years to acquire the Canadian public chain of hardware retail stores.