RTR4OUBT
IN PHOTO: Customers enter a Target store in Ancaster, January 15, 2015. Target Corp will abandon its ill-fated expansion into Canada less than two years after launch, the U.S. discount retailer said on Thursday, in a surprise retreat that will put more than 17,000 employees out of work and cost it billions. The company is shutting all of its 133 Canadian stores and said it expects to report about $5.4 billion in pre-tax losses for its fourth quarter, which finishes at the end of January. Losses are mostly due to the writedown of the Canadian investment, along with exit costs and operating losses. REUTERS/Peter Power

The supermarket chain, Target Corp. started wrapping up its failed Canadian experiment way ahead of its schedule. The Target store at Centrepoint Mall in Toronto will shut down its operations at the end of business on Monday, earlier than originally planned. Target announced its exit plans from Canada earlier this year, saying the company doesn’t see making any profits in the country until at least 2021.

The Target stores in Sudbury and Orillia are among the six locations that have slated to close by Monday. While 17 other stores have already ceased their operations in the middle of March. A court-appointed monitor supervising Target’s exit from Canada, informed all 133 stores across the country would be permanently end their operations by "as early as mid-April," a month ahead of schedule.

According to court documents, "it is anticipated that the pace of delivery of vacate notices ... will continue to increase over the next two weeks. "All stores are expected to be closed to the public as early as mid-April 2015."

In the ongoing liquidation process, lawyers are still figuring out the details of Target’s exit, besides the creditors, who are also concerned about the investment they have made. The court documents say the Target-branded items could not be sold in the liquidation process since those items are permanently stamped under the company's name. However, the monitor said, "it is not possible to remove the Target branding from most of the (intellectual property assets) without destroying or substantially decreasing their value."

Here is the list of other Target stores that will close down by early April 2015.

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