Wikipedia: Lord & Taylor, colloquially known as L&T, or LT, based in New York, New York, is the oldest upscale-luxury, specialty-retail department store chain in the United States. Concentrated in the eastern United States, the retailer operated independently for nearly a century prior to joining American Dry Goods (later renamed Associated Dry Goods Corp.). Today, the chain is the sole surviving department store nameplate from Associated, as well as from May Department Stores. Lord & Taylor is owned and operated by NRDC Equity Partners, LLC. NRDC bought the chain from Federated Department Stores in October 2006 as Federated sought to concentrate on the Macy's chain after their purchase of May Department Stores (with all other former May department store nameplates having been converted to Macy's), and because the Lord & Taylor brand conflicted with Federated's Macy's and Bloomingdale's brands. Following its acquisition of Lord & Taylor, NRDC Equity Partners has since added Hudson's Bay Company in Canada and the Fortunoff chain in the New York metropolitan area. In 2008, NRDC's portfolio of retail companies, together with the firm's private label brand developer Creative Design Studios, became components of a new multinational limited partnership, Hudson's Bay Trading Company, L.P. Lord & Taylor competes with other department stores at similar or higher price points, such as Barneys New York, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman as well as Bloomingdale's. Lord & Taylor consists of 47 stores and lordandtaylor. com.