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.