As other department stores fall, Simons is booming. CEO Bernard Leblanc opens up about how they did it

Simons, meanwhile, just unveiled plans for its 20^th location — a 92,000 square foot former Nordstrom in Vancouver’s CF Pacific Centre mall — and last year hit a record-breaking $830 million in sales, up 25 per cent from 2024.

“We had an excellent year in 2025,” Leblanc says. “It was also a very key year because we opened our two newest flagships in Toronto at Yorkdale and the Eaton Centre, and those two stores have been strategic targets for us for years; it was a decade in preparation.”

La Maison Simons was founded by Scottish immigrant John Simons in Old Quebec City in 1840 as a dry goods shop that imported products from Europe. When Leblanc joined the company in 1994 — after earning a Bachelor of International Business and Finance from Concordia University — Simons had three locations, all in Quebec City.

By the time he left to join BRP in 2000, Simons had added locations in Montreal and Sherbrooke. When Leblanc returned in 2015 as vice president of operations, Simons had just opened its first location outside of Quebec, in the West Edmonton Mall.

Leblanc then worked closely with fifth-generation CEO Peter Simons as he and his brother Richard developed a foundation for further expansion.

In 2022 he became the first nonfamily member to lead the company as those plans came to life. Now, Simons has locations in almost every major Canadian city.

“You could say there’s room for more, but we’ll be very thoughtful and patient around potential expansion,” Leblanc says. “After 186 years, there’s no rush to jump into anything.”

The Star spoke with Leblanc remotely from Simons’ future home in Vancouver’s Pacific Centre about the company’s storied past, the responsibility of being the first nonfamily owner, the potential he sees for the brand and how Simons is defying the “retailpocalypse” in Canada. 

Why did you initially join Simons in 1994?

I was born in Montreal, spent grade school in Toronto, and then returned to Montreal for high school. My father oversaw Eastern Canadian sales for Air France, so we travelled internationally frequently and I was always very interested in other cultures. I even took a gap year before university where I worked for a travel agency.

I was good at math and wanted to work internationally, so I decided to study international business and finance. After graduation I moved to Quebec City, where Simons was a very well established, reputable family business, so I reached out to see if there was something I could contribute.

I didn’t bring any product development experience to the table, but because I had travelled extensively they felt I could help navigate a global vendor base, and I was hired as a manager responsible for international business development and procurement for our private brand development team.

Why did you leave to join BRP in 2000?

I had spent close to seven years with Simons in more of a merchant and product development role, which taught me the essence of bringing assortments to life in retail. Although I really enjoyed it, and had a strong connection with the Simons family, I got the opportunity to join BRP in a role that would help me better understand product development.

It was also an opportunity to join an international brand and help them expand international manufacturing for power sports technical apparel products. That evolved into a more strategic sourcing and operations, vendor management role, which brought me to Hong Kong, where I managed the vendor base in Asia. I then moved into sales, marketing and distribution for our global dealer network.

I then moved to Lausanne, Switzerland and took responsibility for Europe, Middle East and Africa, and then back to headquarters in Quebec in a global role.

Why did you return to Simons in 2015?

As I came back to Quebec, my ex-colleagues from Simons were telling me about their national expansion plan.

At the time, Simons had just opened its first location outside of Quebec in the West Edmonton Mall. I had always kept in touch with Peter and Richard Simons over the years, so I met up with Peter and we both felt it was a good idea to work together again.

What was your role when you returned?

After coming back to the company, my job was to make sure we could operate nationally after being very concentrated in Quebec, building out the logistics infrastructure that could handle the needs of the business as it grew.

We invested heavily into digitization as we built out our automated fulfilment centre in Quebec City. We transferred all our operations there in 2019 to prepare the business to become a national enterprise, ensuring it could survive that growth without compromising its values, culture and heritage.

When you expand nationally, you can’t be as present in-store or know everybody’s name as we once did. We wanted to keep a lot of the family enterprise culture and values alive as we grew.

Then in March of 2020 COVID hit, and Peter and I teamed up to maximize the strengths that each of us brought to the table, which were very complementary, to carry ourselves through that crisis.

We met every morning and every evening through that two-year period to ensure we knew exactly what was going on, how we were splitting responsibilities to ensure we could carry the business through COVID.

We decided to keep all our permanent employees throughout the entire crisis, which was very, very rare in the industry, but it also served us. When everything started up again all our experience had been kept within the organization, so we hit the ground running, and we were able to restart our national expansion plans.

In 2022 you were named the first nonfamily CEO after five generations. What does that mean to you?

It comes with a with a profound sense of responsibility.

I had the privilege of working with Peter and Richard’s father, Gordon Donald Simons, so I lived through that generational transition in the late nineties.

Ultimately, their name is on the door, so we need to make sure that we have a very deep understanding of the values and the culture that has been passed on through their family. My role is ultimately to carry that heritage forward.

What is the current state of the business?

We had an excellent year in 2025. It was also a very key year because we opened our two newest flagships in Toronto at Yorkdale and the Eaton Centre, and those two stores have been strategic targets for us for years; it was a decade in preparation.

Nordstrom won the space over us in 2016, they had their cycle, and we were able to come in after they left the market. That really established Simons as a true national brand.

We just announced that another key Canadian city, downtown Vancouver, will be our newest addition in the fall of 2027, which will bring us to 20 stores.

How is Simons growing when most major retailers are shrinking?

I would point to three things that contribute to its ongoing success.

One, we have the privilege of being a Canadian heritage brand in the geopolitical context which exists today. Many Canadians are choosing to support local brands, and that has had a positive effect on sales. We are the oldest privately held business in the country, and there are very few businesses that survive two centuries anywhere in the world, not just in Canada.

Second is our unique offering. We have 70 per cent private label brands, which is unique among big box retailers. Our brands are designed, developed and manufactured with our clients in mind. We also have other national and international brands, and there’s a broad spectrum of price points, from entry level to more luxury brands. It’s not rare to have three generations shopping together at Simons, and we can serve every generation with what we offer.

Finally, we are saddened by the companies that unfortunately have had to leave the market. It has a massive impact on employees and their families, but it has created a void. We’re essentially the heritage Canadian brand right now in market. if you’re looking for a one-stop-shop in terms of fashion and home decor, Simons is the destination.

Do you have plans for further expansion, within Canada or beyond?

Being uniquely Canadian is part of our story, so we’re focused on maximizing our market penetration across the country.

Last year we saw a 40 per cent jump in market share, reaching 1.7 per cent in Canada, which is still small. Even in Quebec, our market share is 4.1 per cent, so there’s still plenty of runway for us within the Canadian market.

In Toronto we have downtown with the Eaton Centre, midtown with Yorkdale and out west in Mississauga. So, the natural question is, “what about the North and East?”

We feel like there’s an opportunity for densification in Toronto and Vancouver. However, our strategy has never been about filling empty spaces. It will require finding the right location with the right demographics, in the best malls in the country.

We have five stores in Montreal, and we have three in Toronto, so you could say there’s room for more, but we’ll be very thoughtful and patient around potential expansion.

After 186 years, there’s no rush to jump into anything.