Alibaba vs Burlington: Founders, CEOs and History

Company facts

Founders

CEOs and their tenures

Timeline: Alibaba and Burlington side by side

1. 1972Burlington

   Burlington Coat Factory opens

   Monroe Milstein bought a coat outlet in a former factory building in Burlington, New Jersey, and sold brand-name coats at discount prices, the start of Burlington Coat Factory.

2. 1983Burlington

   First public offering

   Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse Corporation went public for the first time, funding expansion from a regional discounter into a national chain with year-round apparel, shoes, baby and home departments.

3. 1989Burlington

   Cohoes Specialty Stores acquired

   Burlington bought the Cohoes Specialty Stores off-price chain from upstate New York, including a 50 percent stake in the Cohoes Commons building; a few stores still traded as Cohoes Fashions decades later.

4. 1999Alibaba

   Alibaba.com Launched

   Jack Ma and 17 co-founders launch Alibaba.com from a Hangzhou apartment with $60,000 in pooled savings, creating a B2B online marketplace connecting Chinese manufacturers with international buyers.

5. 1999Alibaba

   First Major Investment from SoftBank

   Masayoshi Son invests $20 million in Alibaba in a meeting reportedly lasting five minutes, alongside $5 million from Goldman Sachs, providing survival capital through the imminent dot-com crash.

6. 2001Alibaba

   Gold Supplier Program Launch

   Alibaba launches the Gold Supplier verified membership program at $3,000 per year, generating approximately $10 million in first-year revenue and proving the B2B marketplace model's commercial viability.

7. 2003Alibaba

   Taobao Launches to Challenge eBay

   Alibaba secretly develops and launches Taobao, a consumer-to-consumer marketplace offered free to both buyers and sellers, directly targeting eBay's Chinese market position. Within three years, Taobao surpasses eBay's Chinese market share.

8. 2004Alibaba

   Alipay Escrow Service Created

   Alibaba creates Alipay as a payment escrow solution for Taobao transactions, holding buyer funds until delivery confirmation before releasing payment to sellers solving the trust barrier that was limiting online commerce adoption.

9. 2006Burlington

   Bain Capital takes Burlington private

   Bain Capital acquired Burlington Coat Factory for about $2.06 billion, ending 34 years of Milstein family control. Long-time executive Mark Nesci became chief executive.

10. 2008Alibaba

    Tmall (Taobao Mall) Launch

    Alibaba launches a premium B2C marketplace initially called Taobao Mall (later rebranded Tmall), allowing established brands to operate official storefronts with higher trust credentials and enabling Alibaba to serve the premium consumer segment.

11. 2008Burlington

    Tom Kingsbury named CEO

    Former Kohl's executive Thomas Kingsbury became president and CEO in December 2008, succeeding Mark Nesci, and began overhauling buying, inventory management and the supply chain.

12. 2009Alibaba

    Alibaba Cloud Founded

    Alibaba launches Alibaba Cloud (Aliyun) as a cloud computing business, a decade ahead of many enterprise adoption cycles, positioning it to become Asia Pacific's dominant cloud provider.

13. 2011Alibaba

    First Singles' Day Shopping Festival

    Alibaba transforms the informal 'Singles' Day' celebration on November 11 into a promotional shopping event on Taobao and Tmall, generating ~$130 million (936 million yuan) in sales a figure that would grow more than 100-fold in subsequent years.

14. 2013Burlington

    Return to the stock market

    Burlington Stores priced its IPO on October 2, 2013, selling 13.3 million shares at $17 each for about $226 million, and listed under the ticker BURL.

15. 2014Alibaba

    Record-Breaking NYSE IPO

    Alibaba completes its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange on September 19, 2014, raising $25 billion the largest IPO in US stock market history at that time at a valuation of approximately $168 billion.

16. 2019Alibaba

    Dual Listing on Hong Kong Stock Exchange

    Alibaba completes a secondary listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, raising an additional $13 billion and broadening its investor base among Asian institutional and retail investors, reducing dependence on US capital markets.

17. 2019Burlington

    Michael O'Sullivan becomes CEO

    Former Ross Stores president and COO Michael O'Sullivan succeeded Tom Kingsbury as CEO around September 16, 2019, and later launched the Burlington 2.0 plan of leaner inventories and smaller stores.

18. 2020Burlington

    Online sales end and stores close for the pandemic

    On March 5, 2020, Burlington said it would shut its e-commerce business. Days later pandemic lockdowns closed its stores, and fiscal 2020 revenue fell to $5.76 billion with a $216.5 million net loss.

19. 2021Alibaba

    Record Antitrust Fine

    Chinese regulators impose a 18.23 billion yuan ($2.8 billion USD) antitrust fine on Alibaba following a months-long investigation into its 'choose one from two' exclusivity practices at the time, the largest antitrust fine in Chinese regulatory history.

20. 2023Alibaba

    Six-Business-Unit Restructuring Announced

    Alibaba announces its most significant organizational restructuring, dividing the company into six independent business units each with its own CEO and board: Taobao Tmall Group, Cloud Intelligence Group, Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group, Cainiao S…

21. 2023Burlington

    Bed Bath & Beyond leases

    Burlington won 44 Bed Bath & Beyond leases for $12 million at the June 2023 bankruptcy auction, the largest share of the 109 sold, and later reported 62 former Bed Bath & Beyond leases in total.

22. 2025Burlington

    Joann leases

    After Joann's second bankruptcy, Burlington agreed in April 2025 to take over 45 Joann store leases, many of which became part of its fiscal 2026 opening program.

23. 2026Burlington

    Record fiscal 2025 results

    Burlington reported fiscal 2025 total revenue of $11.57 billion and net income of $610.2 million, and ended the year on January 31, 2026, with 1,212 stores.

24. 2026Burlington

    Tariff refunds put into prices

    In the second quarter of fiscal 2026, sales rose 11 percent to $2.998 billion. Burlington received $55 million in tariff refunds and said it would reinvest them in lower prices; the store count reached 1,287.

25. 2026Burlington

    Headquarters move to Philadelphia announced

    On September 3, 2026, Burlington said it will invest $370 million to move its headquarters from Burlington Township, New Jersey, to Schuylkill Yards in Philadelphia, in phases from late 2028 or early 2029.

Acquisitions

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