Hours before regular customers hit Hudson’s Bay Co.’s flagship downtown Toronto store on Friday, a crowd of well-heeled window shoppers will be squired through the store by the company’s owner and chief executive in a crucial preparation for the retailer’s initial public offering.

At 8 a.m. Friday, investment bankers from the firms that are handling the IPO have been invited to converge on the Bay store to learn first-hand what it is they are supposed to sell to investors. They will be led around by Hudson’s Bay CEO Bonnie Brooks and Richard Baker, the American investor who owns the company, say people familiar with the plans.