Variety Wholesalers, Inc.

What does Variety Wholesalers own?
Variety Wholesalers operates more than 600 retail stores under several banners: Roses (160 stores), Maxway (135 stores), Super 10 (85 stores under the Super Dollar, Bill's Dollar Stores, and Bargain Town names), and Big Lots (218 stores acquired in 2025). The company operates all of its banners directly rather than through franchising.

Is Variety Wholesalers publicly traded?
No. Variety Wholesalers, Inc. is a privately held company. It has never filed for an initial public offering and does not trade on any stock exchange. The Pope family is the sole owner.

Who founded Variety Wholesalers?
John William Pope founded the company in Henderson, North Carolina in 1930. He built the business as a variety store operation focused on closeout merchandise. His son, Art Pope, is the current CEO and principal owner.

Where is Variety Wholesalers headquartered?
The company is headquartered in Henderson, North Carolina, USA. Henderson is a small city in Vance County in the northern part of the state. The company has maintained its headquarters there since its founding in 1930.

How many brands does Variety Wholesalers own?
Variety Wholesalers operates eight retail banners across its four divisions: Big Lots, Roses, Roses Express, Maxway, Super Dollar, Bill's Dollar Stores, Bargain Town, and Super 10. Big Lots is the only banner with a dedicated brand page on Who Brands.

Who owns Variety Wholesalers?
The Pope family owns Variety Wholesalers. Art Pope, son of founder John William Pope, is the CEO and principal shareholder. The company has no outside investors, no private equity backing, and no debt from public markets. It has been family-owned for nearly a century.

How did Variety Wholesalers acquire Big Lots?
Gordon Brothers Retail Partners purchased substantially all assets of the bankrupt Big Lots, Inc. on January 3, 2025. Gordon Brothers then arranged for Variety Wholesalers to operate approximately 220 former Big Lots store locations under the Big Lots brand name. The original Big Lots corporate entity was converted to Chapter 7 liquidation in November 2025.

What is Variety Wholesalers' revenue?
The company does not disclose financial results. As a privately held corporation, Variety Wholesalers is not required to file public financial reports. Industry estimates based on store count and average discount retail revenue per store suggest annual revenue in the range of several hundred million dollars, but no verified figure is publicly available.

John William Pope founded Variety Wholesalers in Henderson, North Carolina in 1930. The company began as a small variety store operation in a rural North Carolina town during the Great Depression. Pope built the business on closeout merchandise purchasing, buying overstock and discontinued inventory from manufacturers and selling it at discounted prices. This model proved resilient through the economic pressures of the 1930s and 1940s.

The company expanded slowly through the mid-20th century, adding stores across North Carolina and neighboring states. Variety Wholesalers remained a regional operator, never pursuing the national expansion that competitors like Big Lots or Dollar General undertook. This regional focus kept costs low and allowed the company to maintain private ownership without taking on debt or seeking public investment.

In 1997, Variety Wholesalers acquired Roses Stores, Inc. Roses was a discount retail chain founded in 1915 by Paul Howard Rose in Henderson, North Carolina. The acquisition brought a larger-format discount store concept into the Variety Wholesalers portfolio. Roses stores, at 30,000 to 70,000 square feet, were significantly larger than the existing Variety Wholesalers formats and gave the company a competitive position in the off-price retail segment. The Roses acquisition also brought the Roses Express banner, which operates as a smaller-format variant.

Art Pope, son of the founder, took over leadership of the company in the 2000s. He expanded the Maxway division and the Super 10 division, adding stores under the Super Dollar and Bargain Town banners. The company also added the Bill's Dollar Store name to its portfolio. By the early 2020s, Variety Wholesalers operated approximately 380 stores across its original three divisions.

The Big Lots acquisition in 2025 was the largest deal in the company's history. Big Lots, Inc., a publicly traded discount retailer formerly listed on the NYSE under ticker BIG, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September 2024. The company had operated more than 1,400 stores at its peak but had struggled with declining sales, high debt, and competition from dollar stores and online retailers. A planned sale to Nexus Capital Management collapsed in December 2024 after an inventory appraisal came in below expectations.

Gordon Brothers Retail Partners, a Boston-based asset advisory and liquidation firm, purchased substantially all of Big Lots' remaining assets on January 3, 2025. Gordon Brothers then arranged for Variety Wholesalers to operate approximately 220 former Big Lots store locations under the Big Lots brand name. Ollie's Bargain Outlet (Nasdaq: OLLI) separately acquired 63 former Big Lots store leases, which it is converting to its own banner. The original Big Lots corporate entity, renamed Former BL Stores, Inc., was converted from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7 liquidation in November 2025 and no longer exists.

The Big Lots deal gave Variety Wholesalers a nationally recognized brand name for the first time. It also expanded the company's geographic reach beyond its traditional Southeast and Mid-Atlantic territory, with Big Lots stores extending into the Midwest.

Variety Wholesalers has faced scrutiny primarily through the political activities of its owner, Art Pope, rather than through its retail operations.

Political Funding and Policy Influence: Art Pope and the Pope Foundation have donated to conservative policy organizations, academic institutions, and political campaigns in North Carolina. Pope's service as state budget director under Governor Pat McCrory from 2013 to 2014 drew attention to his dual role as a public official and private business owner. Critics raised questions about potential conflicts of interest between his policy positions and his business interests. Pope has stated that his policy work and business operations are separate. No formal ethics charges were filed related to his government service.

Big Lots Bankruptcy and Asset Transfer: The 2025 Big Lots asset transfer through Gordon Brothers Retail Partners drew attention from retail industry observers and bankruptcy watchers. The original Big Lots, Inc. filed for Chapter 11 in September 2024, attempted a sale to Nexus Capital Management that collapsed in December 2024, and was converted to Chapter 7 liquidation in November 2025. Some creditors and former employees raised concerns about the speed of the asset transfer and the loss of jobs and benefits at stores that were not retained. The bankruptcy court approved the Gordon Brothers sale and the Variety Wholesalers operating arrangement. No legal challenges to the transfer are active as of July 2026.

Shareholder Litigation (Big Lots): Court filings in an Ohio shareholder lawsuit alleged that former Big Lots officers and directors contributed to the retailer's bankruptcy by approving a large stock buyback program that prioritized shareholder returns over financial stability. This litigation targets the former Big Lots corporate entity and its leadership, not Variety Wholesalers. The case was ongoing as of 2026.