MEC

Mountain Equipment Co-op was founded in 1971 in Vancouver by a group of rock climbers who wanted a source for mountaineering, climbing and hiking gear that mainstream retailers did not carry. It ran on volunteer labor for its first three years before opening a staffed Vancouver store in 1973 and a second location in Calgary in 1977. As a cooperative, MEC was owned by members who bought a five-dollar lifetime share and could vote on the co-op's direction; it grew into the largest retail cooperative in Canada, eventually operating around 20 city locations. That structure ended in 2020: facing financial strain, MEC's board sold the brand, inventory, real-estate leases and other assets to Kingswood Capital Management, a Los Angeles private equity firm, through a newly formed entity — Mountain Equipment Company — that kept the MEC name and stores but is not a cooperative and has no member ownership. The sale drew criticism from co-op members and was reviewed by Canada's Competition Bureau. In May 2025, Kingswood sold Mountain Equipment Company to a group of Canadian investors, returning it to domestic ownership, though still as a conventional private company. As of 2024-2025 it operated 23 to 24 stores in Canada, with plans to expand toward roughly 40 stores by 2028.