Jeff Donald
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David Ritz and Chuck Wolf are cousins. Ritz was a pretty well run company, financially speaking, until they rescued Wolf from bankruptcy in 2001. Wolf was trying to beat Ritz in what was basically a family feud to see who could be the largest photo chain. Wolf, in an effort to go in the lead purchased the Fox chain (which was owned by E. Kodak) and paid way too much for it. The debt of purchasing Fox pushed Wolf into bankruptcy in 2000 and was purchased by Ritz in 2001. David made cousin Chuck the National Sales manager and all seemed fairly normal for a while.
Ritz also owned the Boaters World chain and the oil crisis in 2007/08 pushed Boaters World into bankruptcy and Ritz Camera Centers Inc. followed. A management team led by David Ritz bought the bankrupt Ritz Camera for $33 million. In the end the number of stores dropped from over 1000 to about 350 when it emerged from bankruptcy with David Ritz at the head. I think today the total might stand a little higher.
I think the Canon - Ritz feud stems from losses incurred leading up to the bankruptcy. Ritz was never a strong Canon dealer because they rarely paid spiffs on cameras, which was a part of the pay plan for most Ritz sales people. Ritz, in the late '90's and early 2000s was the largest Nikon dealer in the world based on units sold. The internet ate into sales and Ritz struggled after the Wolf acquisition. The merging of the two ultimately didn't go smoothly and Ritz started loosing money. Combined with the losses at Boaters World and you had a fatal combination.
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