Kmart Corporation. Sears Holdings, the parent company of Kmart, declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 15, 2018. S. S. Kresge, the founder of the company that would become Kmart, met variety-store pioneer Frank Winfield Woolworth while working as a traveling salesman and selling to all 19 of Woolworth's stores at the time. In 1897 Kresge invested $6,700 saved from his job into a five-and-dime store in Memphis, Tennessee. He jointly owned the first store with his former tinware customer, John McCrory. Kresge and McCrory added a second store in downtown Detroit the following year. These were the first S.S. Kresge stores.
S. C. Johnson & Son S. C. Johnson & Son S. C. Johnson & Son, Inc. (commonly referred to as S. C. Johnson, previously S. C. Johnson Wax and Johnson Wax) is an American multinational privately held manufacturer of household cleaning supplies and other consumer chemicals based in Racine, Wisconsin. In 2017, S. C. Johnson employed approximately 13,000 and had estimated sales of $10 billion. The company is owned by the Johnson family. H. Fisk Johnson, Chairman and CEO since 2004, is the fifth generation of the Johnson family to lead the company. The company is one of the oldest family-owned businesses in the U.S,