Home Depot Inc

Home Depot Inc. announced Monday that it was closing its 34 upscale Expo and other home specialty centers and laying off 7,000 people as a result of the crumbling U.S. housing market and worldwide economic downturn. The company said it would close its 34 sprawling Expo Design Center stores by April, including eight in Southern California, and 14 smaller stores. Some employees were stunned. "Shock. It was shock.

Home Depot Inc., the world's largest home-improvement chain, reported third-quarter earnings that got a boost from homeowners preparing for and picking up after Hurricane Irene. For the three months ended Oct. 30, the Atlanta company said its net income jumped 12% to $934 million, or 60 cents a share, from $834 million, or 51 cents, a year earlier. The report Tuesday came a day after its closest competitor, Lowe's Cos., showed a plunge in earnings. Profit at the North Carolina company dropped 44.3% year over year to $225 million, with earnings per share down to 18 cents from 29 cents.

The Home Depot Inc. is paying new Chief Executive Frank Blake a fraction of what it paid his predecessor, Bob Nardelli, and has taken the unusual step of promising Blake no severance package if he leaves. But experts in executive compensation don't expect Wednesday's decision by the giant home improvement store chain to set a trend in corporate America, despite the ire that hefty compensation packages have drawn among investors.

The Treasury bond market just can't catch a break. Interest rates jumped again Wednesday, sending stock prices down moderately, after investors demanded a higher-than-expected yield at the government's auction of $19 billion in 10-year notes. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 24 points. The day's activity in the bond market is more troubling news for the housing market, because mortgage rates take their cue from longer-term Treasury yields.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has opened an informal inquiry into how Home Depot Inc. records credits it receives from vendors for defective merchandise, the company said Thursday. Home Depot shares fell 40 cents to $42.55.

Home Depot Inc. agreed to deactivate and replace customers' lost or stolen gift cards under a deal announced by New York Atty. Gen. Eliot Spitzer. The agreement makes Home Depot among the nation's first retailers to change its corporate policy on the plastic cards--long considered the same as cash.

Home Depot Inc. said it will buy Maintenance Warehouse/America Corp., a direct-mail marketer of maintenance and repair supplies. Terms of the all-stock transaction were not disclosed. San Diego-based Maintenance Warehouse, which had sales of $130 million for 1996, will help Home Depot increase its commercial sales, the nation's largest home improvement retailer said. The purchase is expected to have a neutral effect on Atlanta-based Home Depot's earnings.

Connect Inc. of Mountain View said it is creating an online catalog and ordering system for Home Depot Inc.'s Maintenance Warehouse, a leading reseller of building repair products. The announcement sent Connect's stock up 41 cents to close at $2.47 on Nasdaq.

Home improvement retailer Home Depot Inc., under pressure as investors question its growth prospects, reaffirmed its long-term revenue and earnings goals and announced the repurchase of as much as $2 billion of its stock. Shares of Atlanta-based Home Depot climbed 91 cents to $30 on the NYSE. Home Depot also confirmed its longer-term guidance of 15% to 18% annual sales growth and 18% to 20% annual profit growth through fiscal 2004.

Home Depot Inc. said that it and the private equity firms that had agreed to buy its Home Depot Supply unit had delayed the proposed closing date of the deal to Aug. 23 from today. Last week the home improvement retailer said that it was in discussions with the buyers -- Bain Capital Partners, Carlyle Group and Clayton, Dubilier & Rice -- about restructuring the agreement.

Home Depot Inc. posted a 44% increase in its first-quarter profit Tuesday but didn't live up to the market's high expectations a day after rival Lowe's Cos. Inc. boosted its full-year outlook. The volatile housing market continued to drag down revenue and hurt business in states with the highest foreclosure rates, Home Depot said -- taking a decidedly less optimistic view than its chief competitor, whose own results Monday helped lead a market rally. "Getting to 'less bad' is not the same as getting to recovery," Chairman and Chief Executive Frank Blake said.

Home Depot Inc. announced Monday that it was closing its 34 upscale Expo and other home specialty centers and laying off 7,000 people as a result of the crumbling U.S. housing market and worldwide economic downturn. The company said it would close its 34 sprawling Expo Design Center stores by April, including eight in Southern California, and 14 smaller stores. Some employees were stunned. "Shock. It was shock.

Home Depot Inc.'s third-quarter profit fell 31%, less than analysts estimated, after it slashed corporate expenses and closed stores. Net income for the three months that ended Nov. 2 decreased 31% to $756 million, or 45 cents a share, from $1.09 billion, or 60 cents, a year earlier, Atlanta-based Home Depot said. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg estimated an average of 38 cents a share. Sales retreated 6.2% to $17.8 billion, beating the $17.6-billion average estimate. Sales for the year that ends Feb. 1 may decline more than the 5% Home Depot had forecast, the company said.

Home Depot Inc. said Tuesday that its second-quarter profit sank 24% and reiterated its downbeat outlook for the year amid a weak housing market that shows no signs of recovery. For the three months ended Aug. 3, the nation's largest home improvement chain said its net income fell to $1.2 billion, or 71 cents a share. That's down from $1.59 billion, or 81 cents, during the same period last year. Meanwhile, revenue slid 5.4% to $21 billion and same-store sales fell 7.9%. The results handily beat expectations as do-it-yourselfers began to take their hammers and paint brushes out of retirement.

Home Depot Inc. reported a 66% drop in fiscal first-quarter profit Tuesday as the U.S. housing meltdown hurt sales and it took a charge to close stores and curb expansion plans. The world's biggest home improvement retailer said its full-year per-share profit could fall as much as 24%, and its shares sank more than 5%. Results "were predictably poor," said Paul Larson, an equities strategist at Morningstar. "When you have an economy like we do today, consumers are going to spend less on discretionary items."

Home Depot Inc. said Thursday that it would close 15 stores at a cost of 1,300 jobs and scrap plans for 50 new stores as the U.S. housing slump cripples sales. The company's stock had its biggest gain in a month after saying it would slow expansion of floor space to 1.5% next year from 2.5% this year. The Atlanta-based chain maintained its forecast for a decline in earnings per share of 19% to 24% this year.

Home Depot Inc. said a laptop computer containing information on 10,000 employees was stolen from a worker's car in Massachusetts. The laptop contained data on workers in the northeastern U.S. and didn't have customer data, a company spokesman said. The computer was stored in the car against Atlanta-based Home Depot's data-security policy, he said.

Home Depot Inc. said it granted stock options to some executives at below-market prices, making it the biggest company to disclose irregularities in the way it paid executives with the grants. Home Depot said that in three cases before December 2000 executives received options with an exercise price that was lower than the market price on the day the grants were approved. Home Depot shares fell 46 cents to $36.91.

Hobbled by the housing slump, Home Depot Inc. posted its first annual sales decline Tuesday and released a fiscal 2008 outlook that was more gloomy than that of its chief rival. Atlanta-based Home Depot reported that fiscal fourth-quarter profit declined more than 27% and said an initiative to buy back up to $22.5 billion in Home Depot stock would remain on hold until markets improved. Home Depot appeased some investors with plans to significantly cut back the number of new store openings.

A controversial Home Depot project in Long Beach -- planned across the street from one of the region's last coastal wetlands -- is in limbo after a judge Thursday tossed out the development's environmental report. Los Angeles District Court Judge John A. Torribio ruled that the report was flawed -- a decision that represents a significant victory for opponents of the Home Depot Design Center, who said the project would damage the wetlands.