Hudson bay is owned by the BAY and the BAY is a commercial version of the Hudson bay company and always has been. I would speculate at this point that perhaps the other(Northwest Company) is Zellers Corp. and they are both one and the same now. I've always presumed that the better one being the Bay took over Zellers.. whichever does not really matter except for trivia buffs. And as far as Amalgamation goes? just a word! one took over the other for some reason. it's the way things work these days..
Suffice it to say they are both one and the same now!