Target Corporation is an American retail corporation headquartered in
Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the eighth largest retailer in the
United States, and a component of the S&P 500 Index.[3] The company is
one of the largest American-owned private employers in the United
States.
Target was established as the discount division of Dayton's department
store of Minneapolis in 1962. It began expanding the store nationwide
in the 1980s (as part of the Dayton-Hudson Corporation), and
introduced new store formats under the Target brand in the 1990s. The
company has found success as a cheap-chic player in the industry.[4]
The parent company was renamed Target Corporation in 2000, and
divested itself of its last department store chains in 2004. It
suffered from a massive, highly publicized security breach of customer
credit card data and the failure of its short-lived Target Canada
subsidiary in the early 2010s, but experienced revitalized success
with its expansion in urban markets within the United States.