By the end of that long cycle, the Hudson's Bay Company had become a major retailing empire with no sense of privilege or feeling for history.

The interest payments necessary to cover the $2.3-billion debtMcGiverin and his board had incurred expanding the retailing empire quickly overwhelmed everv other balance-sheet item.

He built up the three-store chain to a retailing empire of about 150 department and specialty stores, which at one point had sales of $7.5 billion a year.

Conran is convinced, too, that his experience of manufacturing in the early days has stood him in good stead as head of a retailing empire.

Together, these stores would make up the core of a retailing empire that would operate from Ohio west to the Dakotas.

"I do my homework," said Alla Verber, a director of a retailing empire called Mercury, who regularly checks out the scene.

The elder Mr. Pinault, 66, is a self-made tycoon who parlayed a lumber business into a retailing empire.

He could not have built a retailing empire the size of what he's built, the way he built it.

The family was ruined by the Civil War, but Nathan and his brother, Isidor, ultimately built one of the country's greatest retailing empires.

It had already bought Allied Stores for $3.4 billion to create a huge retailing empire.