The TJX Companies, Inc.
Off-Price Apparel and Home Fashions RetailFounded 1987- Updated June 2026
Reviewed by Swet Parvadiya
Last reviewed: June 2026
CorpDigest
The TJX Companies, Inc.
Company History
Founded 1987 in Framingham, Massachusetts
Last reviewed: 2026-06-06 · By Swet Parvadiya
Zayre Corporation opened its first discount store in 1956, selling branded merchandise at prices below department store retail. By the mid-1970s Zayre had a discount store business and a growing sideline in off-price apparel. Bernard Cammarata, hired to run the off-price division, opened the first T.J. Maxx location in Auburn, Massachusetts in 1976. The store moved through inventory faster than anything else in Zayre's portfolio, and Cammarata built out a buying organization specifically designed to source closeouts and manufacturer overruns at speed.
The Winners acquisition in 1990 extended the model into Canada. TJX Companies was formally constituted as an independent entity in 1987, when Zayre Corporation spun off the off-price retail business as a separate public company. Marshalls joined the portfolio in 1995, adding a second major off-price apparel chain and the distribution relationships that came with it. TK Maxx launched in the United Kingdom and Ireland in 1994, applying the same buying model to European markets where off-price retail had no established competitor of comparable scale.
HomeGoods launched in 1992 to extend the treasure-hunt model into home furnishings — a category where vendor excess inventory is as common as in apparel and where the margin structure on clearance goods can be attractive. The Sierra brand, acquired in 2019, brought outdoor apparel and gear into the portfolio with the same buying methodology applied to a different merchandise category.
What Cammarata built in 1976 was not just a store format — it was a buying organization structure that maintained over 1,000 independent merchant relationships capable of transacting on short timelines. That organizational capability became the company's core asset, more durable than any individual store lease or merchandise category.
Bernard Cammarata joined Zayre Corp in the 1970s as a buyer and quickly rose through the ranks due to his deep understanding of the off-price apparel market. By 1985, he was named CEO of the struggling Zayre Corp, which was losing market share to Walmart and Target. Cammarata identified that the company’s experimental off-price chain, T.J. Maxx, was the only division showing consistent growth. In 1987, facing a liquidity crisis and pressure from activist investors, he executed a controversial restructuring that closed over 100 traditional Zayre department stores and spun off the off-price division into The TJX Companies. This pivotal decision saved the company and laid the foundation for its three-decade run of consistent revenue and earnings growth. Cammarata served as CEO of TJX until 1995, during which time the company acquired Marshalls and expanded its international footprint, establishing the decentralized buying model that remains the core of the company’s competitive advantage today.
Sydney Zacks and his brother Bernard Zacks founded the first Zayre store in Chelsea, Massachusetts, in 1956, operating on a simple premise: offer high-quality goods at discount prices in a self-service format. The chain expanded rapidly throughout the Northeast, reaching over 300 locations by the late 1970s. While Sydney focused on real estate and store operations, Bernard handled merchandising and buying. The brothers’ commitment to the discount model laid the groundwork for the company’s later experimentation with off-price retail, leading to the opening of the first T.J. Maxx in 1976. Although the traditional Zayre format ultimately failed to compete with national giants like Walmart, the Zacks family’s initial vision of discount retail created the corporate structure and capital base that allowed Bernard Cammarata to execute the 1987 spin-off that created The TJX Companies.
Sydney and Bernard Zacks open the first Zayre discount department store in Chelsea, Massachusetts, laying the foundation for the company that would eventually become TJX.
Zayre Corp opens the first T.J. Maxx store in Framingham, Massachusetts, experimenting with the off-price apparel model that would eventually become its core business.
Bernard Cammarata executes a radical restructuring, spinning off the off-price division into The TJX Companies and closing over 100 underperforming Zayre department stores.
TJX acquires the Winners chain in Canada, marking its first international expansion and establishing a dominant position in the Canadian off-price market.
TJX internally develops and launches the HomeGoods banner, applying the off-price model to the home furnishings category and creating a new $5 billion revenue stream.
TJX enters the European market by acquiring the TK Maxx banner in the UK and Ireland, which would grow to over 600 locations and become a dominant force in European off-price retail.
TJX acquires the Marshalls chain for $500 million, consolidating its position as the dominant off-price apparel retailer in the United States and creating the Marmaxx division.
TJX launches the HomeSense banner in the U.S., a smaller-format version of HomeGoods designed for off-mall locations and international markets.
TJX surpasses $30 billion in annual net sales for the first time, driven by strong comparable store sales growth and the continued expansion of the HomeGoods and Marshalls banners.
TJX acquires the outdoor apparel and gear retailer Sierra for $120 million, expanding its footprint in the active and outdoor categories.
TJX reports $35.21 billion in net sales for fiscal 2024, representing a 12.7% increase from the prior year and generating $3.45 billion in net income.
TJX approaches 5,000 global store locations, with a strategic focus on expanding the Marshalls and HomeGoods banners in the U.S. and the TK Maxx banner in Europe.
TJX acquired the Marshalls chain to consolidate its position as the dominant off-price apparel retailer in the United States and create the Marmaxx division. Marshalls offered a complementary assortment of men’s and children’s apparel and a larger store format that allowed TJX to capture a broader demographic.
TJX acquired the Winners chain in Canada to mark its first international expansion and establish a dominant position in the Canadian off-price market. Winners was a struggling regional off-price retailer at the time, but TJX recognized the potential of the Canadian market and the synergies with its existing buying network.
TJX entered the European market by acquiring the TK Maxx banner in the UK and Ireland, recognizing the significant white space in the European off-price market. The acquisition allowed TJX to utilize its global buying network to source inventory for the European market while adapting the assortment to local consumer preferences.
TJX acquired the outdoor apparel and gear retailer Sierra to expand its footprint in the active and outdoor categories, which were experiencing rapid growth in the broader retail market. Sierra operated a network of 70 stores and a complementary e-commerce platform focused on outdoor apparel, footwear, and equipment.
TJX traces its lineage to 1976, when Bernard Cammarata, a former merchandising executive at Marmaxx (a division of Zayre Corporation), opened the first T.J. Maxx store in Auburn, Massachusetts under the umbrella of Zayre's discount department-store empire. Cammarata had been recruited by Zayre's leadership specifically to build a higher-end off-price apparel concept that would sell brand-name clothing at 20 to 60 percent below department-store prices. T.J. Maxx expanded rapidly through the late 1970s and early 1980s, opening dozens of stores annually and becoming the largest off-price chain in the U.S. by 1985. Zayre Corporation's core discount-department business deteriorated through the mid-1980s, however, and in 1988 Zayre sold its struggling discount stores to Ames Department Stores for $800 million. The off-price businesses, including T.J. Maxx, Marshalls (not yet owned), Hit or Miss and Chadwick's of Boston, were spun off as a separate publicly traded company in June 1987 under the name The TJX Companies, Inc. Cammarata served as the founding CEO, and the company has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange since the spin-off.
In November 1995 TJX acquired Marshalls from Melville Corporation for $550 million in cash and preferred stock, in a transaction that fundamentally rewrote the off-price industry. Marshalls had been founded in 1956 by Alfred Marshall in Beverly, Massachusetts and at the time of acquisition operated 496 stores against T.J. Maxx's 587, making the combined operation by far the largest off-price retailer in the U.S. The deal was reviewed by the U.S. Department of Justice, which ultimately approved it after TJX agreed to divest 27 stores in markets where the brands overlapped most directly. The strategic logic was a dual-banner model: T.J. Maxx and Marshalls would share buying organization, distribution centers and corporate overhead while operating as separate consumer-facing brands, allowing TJX to place two stores in many trade areas without cannibalization. The integration produced roughly $150 million in annual synergies within three years, and the dual-banner model has remained TJX's signature competitive structure for nearly three decades, distinguishing the company from rival off-price chains that operate a single banner.
TJX's international expansion began in 1990 with the acquisition of Winners Apparel Ltd., a Canadian off-price retailer founded in 1982 in Toronto by David Margolis. The purchase price was modest, but Winners has since grown to more than 290 stores across Canada and remains TJX's first and most enduring international beachhead. In 1994 TJX launched T.K. Maxx in the United Kingdom as a greenfield concept, opening the first store in Bristol on 1 October 1994. The brand uses T.K. instead of T.J. to avoid confusion with the British retailer T.J. Hughes. T.K. Maxx expanded to Ireland in 1997, Germany in 2007, Poland in 2009 and Austria and the Netherlands in 2009, and as of fiscal 2024 operates more than 770 stores across Europe. In 2017 TJX launched T.K. Maxx Australia with the acquisition of Trade Secret, a 35-store Australian off-price chain bought from Gazal Corporation. HomeSense, the home-fashions banner, debuted in Canada in 2001 and the U.K. in 2008 before launching in the U.S. in 2017.
HomeGoods opened its first store in 1992 in Framingham, Massachusetts as a deliberate experiment to extend the off-price model from apparel into home furnishings. The concept proved that off-price economics, treasure-hunt merchandising and rapidly rotating assortments could be applied to housewares, decorative accessories, furniture, rugs and seasonal goods. Through the 1990s and 2000s HomeGoods grew steadily but quietly behind T.J. Maxx and Marshalls. In the 2010s, however, HomeGoods accelerated sharply as American consumer spending shifted toward home, social-media-driven home decor went mainstream and full-price competitors like Pier 1 Imports failed. HomeGoods passed 800 stores in 2018 and crossed 900 by fiscal 2024. TJX launched HomeSense in the U.S. in August 2017 as a larger-format, more furniture-heavy sister concept to HomeGoods, modeled on the Canadian HomeSense banner that had operated since 2001. Together HomeGoods, HomeSense and the home departments inside T.J. Maxx and Marshalls make TJX one of the largest home-fashions retailers in the U.S., with the home category contributing roughly one-third of company revenue and powering most of TJX's like-for-like sales growth in recent years.
TJX grew from roughly $3 billion in revenue at its 1987 spin-off to $54.2 billion in fiscal 2024 (ending February 2024) primarily by adding stores and growing comparable-store sales rather than building an e-commerce business. The store count expanded from about 500 at the spin-off to roughly 4,950 across all banners as of February 2024. Comparable-store sales have grown in nearly every year of the company's history except for fiscal 2009 during the financial crisis and fiscal 2021 during COVID-19 store closures. The company's deliberate decision to keep e-commerce small, with tjmaxx.com, marshalls.com, sierra.com and homegoods.com together representing only about 2 to 3 percent of sales, reflects management's view that the treasure-hunt experience, weekly inventory turnover and impulse purchasing translate poorly to web channels. Off-mall real estate, smaller boxes of about 28,000 to 35,000 square feet, and lower rent than department stores have allowed TJX to operate profitably in trade areas where full-price retail has retreated. Operating margins in the 10 to 11 percent range and return on invested capital above 25 percent in recent years have made TJX one of the most consistent compounders in U.S. retail.