Japanese take the family to FamilyMart, the country's #3 convenience store chain behind market leader Seven-Eleven Japan and LAWSON. About half of the fast-growing company's 15,000 stores are in Japan. FamilyMart also operates shops in China, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and the US. The chain opened its first store in Shanghai in 2004 and has grown to number about 220 stores in China. FamilyMart entered the US market in 2005 and now operates about 15 upscale convenience stores in the Los Angeles area under the Famima banner. Many more are planned. To further strengthen its retail network, FamilyMart in December 2009 acquired smaller rival am/pm Japan Co. from owner REX Holdings.

Shop Direct Home Shopping is one of the UK's largest shop-at-home retailers. Doing business under the Shop Direct Group name, the company sells brand-name apparel, appliances, electronics, jewelry, toys, and more through its websites and catalogs (more than 9 million distributed annually). Its home-shopping operations include about 10 retail brands, including Littlewoods, Woolworths, Great Universal, and Marshall Ward. Shop Direct also peddles overstock merchandise through about 30 Littlewoods Clearance outlets (previously Bargain Crazy). Formerly named Littlewoods Shop Direct Home Shopping, the firm is owned by Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay.

Grupo Salinas is the group of companies owned by Ricardo B. Salinas, one of Mexico's wealthiest citizens. While not a holding company, Grupo Salinas has interests in financial services, media, retail, and telecommunications -- a few of which are listed on Mexico's stock exchange. It has controlling interests in the nation's #2 network, TV Azteca, cellular service provider Iusacell, and electronics retaler Grupo Elektra. Motorcycle manufacturer Italika launched production in 2005 and is Mexico's top seller, producing 300,000 bikes per year. Grupo Elektra's financial service firms, Banco Azteca, Seguros Azteca, and Afore Azteca, serve low-income families in Mexico, Brazil, and Peru.

Casual Living is a mid- to high-end outdoor and patio furniture retailer that boasts a handful of locations throughout the Dallas Metroplex and beyond. In addition to selling home furnishings, Casual Living sells fireplaces and complementary accessories. It specializes in selling top brands, such as Stoll, Hanamint, Mallin, Meadowcraft, Prestige, Tropitone, Treasure Garden, Hargrove, and Lloyd Flanders. The company got its start in Carrollton, Texas, in 1993.

There might be a trip to Best Buy for some CDs or a television in your future. Best Buy Canada operates about 210 consumer electronics superstores under the three brands: Best Buy, Best Buy Mobile, and Future Shop. The retail outlets offer televisions, computers, and DVD players, as well as cameras, CDs, DVDs, mobile phones, and software. In addition the Future Shop stores, which average 26,700 square feet and are smaller than Best Buy Canada locations, offer home appliances, office supplies, and maintenance services. Best Buy Canada also offers customers in-home and commercial technical support through its Geek Squad services unit. US-based retail giant Best Buy acquired the Future Shop chain in 2002.

Maldonado Nursery & Landscaping is owned and operated by brothers Jerry, Oscar, and Roy, and their father, Rogelio Maldonado, who founded the company in 1987. The Maldonado family wants to keep San Antonio green and beautiful. Maldonado Nursery & Landscaping operates a retail garden center and provides services such as commercial and residential landscape design, installation, and maintenance. The firm also offers professional irrigation installation and maintenance, designed to ensure efficient watering for customers in municipalities with strict water restrictions.

Carrefour Italia sources more than 90% of its agricultural food products locally and sells its own brands of food, including the Terre D'Italia and ScelgoBio labels.Europe's leading retailer Carrefour knows that to live la dolce vita, you've got to buy lots of stuff. Its operations in Italy are carried out by Carrefour Italia, one of the country's biggest sellers of food and general merchandise, along with Conad and Coop Italia. Carrefour owns about 495 stores in Italy, which operate under the names Carrefour (about 65 hypermarkets), GS (about 235 supermarkets), DìperDì (some 175 convenience stores), and DocksMarket and GrossIper (about 15 cash-and-carry stores), and franchises more than a thousand others.

The Jim Pattison Group is headquartered in Vancouver, BC, Canada and is comprised of over 449 locations world wide focusing on the automotive, media, packaging, food sales and distribution, magazine distribution, entertainment, export and financial industries. With sales of over $7.1 Billion in 2009 and more than 33,000 employees, the Jim Pattison Group is the third largest private company in Canada. The mandate of the Jim Pattison Group is total customer satisfaction and that goal continues to enable the individual divisions of the Jim Pattison Group to become leaders in their markets. We hope that this website will provide our customers, employees, financial partners, and suppliers with a better picture of the depth and breadth of The Jim Pattison Group. The site is also designed to provide direct access to our divisions through links to their individual websites.

H&M opened its first women's clothing store in 1947 as Hennes (Swedish for "hers"); it later bought the hunting and men's clothing store Mauritz Widforss. H&M is controlled by the family of chairman Stefan Persson (the billionaire son of founder Erling Persson). H&M Hennes & Mauritz targets the Hip & Modish. The firm designs cheap yet chic clothing, mainly for men and women ages 18 to 45, children's apparel, and its own brands of cosmetics. Fast-growing H&M operates about 2,000 stores in some 35 countries and has direct sales operations in selected areas. Germany is H&M's #1 market, accounting for about 25% of sales. About 60% of its clothing is made in Asia, the rest is manufactured primarily in Europe.

Butera acquired three stores in Illinois from bankrupt Eagle Food Centers. Family-owned and -operated from its inception, Butera became an employee-owned company in the early 1990s. Butera Finer Foods, Inc. If you're in the Windy City and you're in the market for foodstuffs, find your way to Butera's. Butera Finer Foods runs about 10 full-service supermarkets under the Butera Market banner in northern Illinois. The stores specialize in produce, deli items, and international foods at low prices. Since its founding in 1968 by Paul Butera Sr. and his brother Joe, some 25 Butera Finer Foods supermarkets have been opened. Butera's twin sons Joseph and Paul Jr. currently run 10 of them.

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