The Warehouse, (NZX: WHS) founded by Stephen Tindall in 1982, is the largest department store retailer operating in New Zealand. The Warehouse is largely a discount store similar to Wal-Mart in the United States, however The Warehouse sells far more generic brand merchandise than other discount or department stores. The company also formerly had operations in Australia, which were sold to Australian Discount Retail. For the fiscal year ending October 2005, The Warehouse reported a net income of NZ$71.9 million on NZ$2.224 billion of sales revenue (3.6% profit margin).
As of 2005, the company had 253 stores throughout New Zealand and Australia along with more than 6 distribution centres in total. On November 24, 2005, The Warehouse announced that was selling its Australian operation for AU$98 million (NZ$99 million).
Colloquial names for the company's stores include "The Big Red Shed", "WareWhare" (pronounced wah-ray fah-reh, whare is Maori word for house), Warehu and "The Wuds". (Full article...)