BJ's Wholesale Club, Inc. - 1997 Specimen Stock Certificate

Specimen Stock printed by American Bank Note Company. Incorporated in 1996.

BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc., commonly referred as BJ's, is an American membership-only warehouse club chain based in Marlborough, Massachusetts, operating in the eastern United States in addition to Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Tennessee. The company has announced plans to expand into Alabama. The company was started by discount department store chain Zayre in 1984, on the Medford/Malden border in Massachusetts. The company's name was derived from the initials of Beverly Jean Weich, the daughter of Mervyn Weich, the president of the new company. Weich announced his resignation as president in June 1987, and left on August 1. He was replaced by John Levy. When Zayre Corporation sold the Zayre nameplate to rival discount chain Ames in October 1988, TJX Companies was formed. In 1989, TJX spun off their warehouse division, consisting of BJ's and now-defunct HomeClub (later known as HomeBase, then House2Home), to form Waban, Inc. In August 1997, Waban spun off BJ's to become an independent company, BJ's Wholesale Club, Inc., headquartered in Natick, Massachusetts, while Waban renamed itself to HomeBase, Inc. In 2011, BJ's was acquired by two private equity firms, Leonard Green & Partners and CVC Capital Partners. It returned to being a public company in 2018. In 2019, BJ's expanded into Michigan, with a new store in Madison Heights. A second and a third Michigan location have since opened in Taylor and Chesterfield Township, respectively. BJ's now also has a location in Canton, Michigan. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BJ%27s_Wholesale_Club