Lowe's

Lowe's Companies, Inc. (), often shortened to Lowe's, is an American retail company specializing in home improvement. Headquartered in Mooresville, North Carolina, the company operates a chain of retail stores in the United States and Canada. As of February 2021, Lowe's and its related businesses operates 2,197 home improvement and hardware stores in North America.

Lowe's is the second-largest hardware chain in the United States (previously the largest in the U.S. until surpassed by The Home Depot in 1989) behind rival The Home Depot and ahead of Menards. It is also the second-largest hardware chain in the world, also behind The Home Depot but ahead of European retailers Leroy Merlin, B&Q, and OBI.

History

The first Lowe's store, North Wilkesboro Hardware, opened in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, in 1921 by Lucius Smith Lowe. After Lowe died in 1940, the business was inherited by his daughter, Ruth Buchan, who sold the company to her brother, James Lowe, that same year. James took on his brother-in-law Carl Buchan as a partner in 1943.

Buchan anticipated the dramatic increase in construction after World War II, and under his management, the store focused on hardware and building materials. Before then, the product mix had also included notions, dry goods, horse tack, snuff, produce, and groceries. The company bought a second location in Sparta, North Carolina, in 1949.

In 1952, Buchan became the sole owner of Lowe's and the company was incorporated as Lowe's North Wilkesboro Hardware. In 1954, Jim Lowe started the Lowes Foods grocery store chain.

By 1955, Buchan quickly expanded the company by opening stores in the North Carolina cities of Asheville, Charlotte, and Durham. By the end of 1955, Buchan had opened a total of six stores.

In 1960, Buchan died of a heart attack at age 44. His five-man executive team, which included Robert Strickland and Leonard Herring, took the company public in 1961 under the name Lowe's Companies Inc. By 1962, Lowe's operated 21 stores and reported annual revenues of $32 million. Lowe's began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in 1979.

Lowe's suffered in the 1980s due to market conditions and increasing competition from the new big-box store chain, The Home Depot. For a while, Lowe's resisted adopting the mega-store format partly because its management believed the smaller towns where Lowe's mostly operated would not support huge stores. However, Lowe's eventually adopted the big-box format to survive.

Lowe's has since grown nationally, as it was aided by the purchase of the Renton, Washington–based Eagle Hardware & Garden company in 1999. The first store outside the United States was in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. According to its website, Lowe's has operated/serviced more than 2,355 locations in the United States, Canada, and Mexico alone, although the Mexican stores were closed in the late 2010s.

Lowe's formerly operated in Mexico with 14 locations: 8 in Monterrey, Nuevo León, 1 in Saltillo, Coahuila, 1 in Hermosillo, Sonora, 1 in Chihuahua, Chihuahua, 1 in Culiacán, Sinaloa, 1 in Aguascalientes, Aguascalientes and 1 in León, Guanajuato. Lowe's Mexico closed all its stores on April 10, 2019.

Finances

In 2020, for the May–July yearly quarter, the company reported sales of $27.3 billion; in 2019, for the same period, the firm had reported sales of $21 billion. The digital sales for the same period also were up to 135%. The sales surges were a result of consumers switching their buying habits as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Historical data

For the fiscal year 2019 (2/1/2019-1/31/2020), Lowe's reported earnings of US$4.281 billion, with an annual revenue of US$72.148 billion, an increase of 1.17% over the previous fiscal cycle. Lowe's shares traded at over $116 per share, and its market capitalization was valued at over US$90.32 billion in January 2020. Lowe's ranked No. 42 on the 201
Fortune 500
list. Lowes announced a $10 billion stock buyback at the end of 2018 to begin in 2019, while trimming jobs.

For the fiscal year 2018, Lowe's reported earnings of US$2.314 billion, with an annual revenue of US$71.309 billion, an increase of 3.92% over the previous fiscal cycle. Lowe's shares traded at over $96 per share, and its market capitalization was valued at over US$75.8 billion in October 2018. Lowe's ranked No. 40 on the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.

Headquarters

In 1998, Lowe's purchased the Wilkes Mall in Wilkesboro, North Carolina, to serve as the company's headquarters. In 2002, Lowe's acquired full control over the building after the 10 remaining mall tenants vacated the property. A year later, Lowe's constructed and relocated the corporate headquarters to a new, 350-acre campus in Mooresville, North Carolina. The new facility contains a five-story and two seven-story buildings. The building has a central atrium and two office wings; the atrium houses a food court, a five-story spiral staircase, and meeting, and reception rooms. A lake flows underneath the headquarters building.

Lowe's maintained its former headquarters in Wilkesboro, where it employs over 2,400 people. In 2011, Lowe's invested $10 million in improvements and renovations in the property, including a full-service food court, coffee shop, health center, as well as gating the entire property with an addition of a guardhouse.

Lowe's Companies Canada is based in Boucherville, Quebec, after the merger with Rona. Prior to 2016, Lowe's Canada was headquartered in Toronto, Ontario.

Lowe's operates customer contact centers in Mooresville and Wilkesboro, North Carolina, as well as Indianapolis, Indiana, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and India.

On June 27, 2019, Lowe's announced the construction of a $153 million, 23-story tower in Charlotte's fast-growing South End neighborhood, which will be completed by 2020 and eventually house 2000 employees, 400 of which will move from the headquarters. The new tower will house a "global technology hub" for Lowe's. The state of North Carolina is providing $54 million in incentives provided Lowe's meets certain goals.

Environmental record

Lowe's won eight consecutive Energy Star awards from 2003 to 2010, including four Energy Star Partner of the Year awards for educating consumers about the benefits of energy efficiency. On March 1, 2010, Lowe's also became the first winner of the Energy Star Sustained Excellence Award in Retail, to recognize its contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by promoting energy-efficient products and educating consumers and employees on the value of the Energy Star program. In 2000, Lowe's released a policy promising that all wood products sold would not be sourced from rainforests. However, according to a 2006 report released by the Environmental Investigation Agency, wood used in flooring by Armstrong Flooring that Lowe's was selling had been coming from the forests of Indonesia’s remote Papua Province, where some logging was estimated to be illegal. According to the Telepak report, which was the sole basis of the EIA allegations, Armstrong commissioned an independent audit of Kreasi's merbau supplies over the last 18 month which found documentation relating to the source of the company's merbau logs in Papua, and based on this, Armstrong decided to continue to trade in merbau supplied by Kreasi. The cited report dates to 2006 and Lowe's continues to claim its wood products come from known sources; is legally harvested and traded, and more.

On April 17, 2014, Lowe's paid a $500,000 penalty for violations of the federal Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting (RRP) Rule, which require renovation contractors, such as window and carpet installers to manage the risk of lead dust when renovating customer homes. As of 2022, this is the largest RRP violation to ever occur. In the words of the EPA, "“This settlement will ensure that not only children in southern Illinois, but children throughout the United States will be better protected from the known hazards associated with lead exposure".

On March 6, 2020, Lowe's paid a $1,600,000 fine for violating California's air quality regulations. This includes violations in NOx emissions from ovens and asbestos from demolition/renovation activities.

Carbon footprint

Lowe's reported Total CO2e emissions (Direct + Indirect) for the twelve months ending 31 December 2020 at 1,971 Kt (-138 /-6.5% y-o-y).Alt URL
/ref> Lowe's plans to reduce emissions 40% by 2025 from a 2016 base year.

Labor relations

In August 2022, the company announced that it was awarding $55 million in bonus income to front-line workers, and that it was offering staff discounts on common household and cleaning items in light of recent inflationary pressures.

Advertising and sponsorships

In January 2019, Lowes became the official Sponsor of the National Football League.

Racing sponsorships

Lowe's purchased naming rights to Charlotte Motor Speedway in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1998, and the speedway changed names to Lowe's Motor Speedway. After the ten-year naming rights expired, Lowe's extended naming rights by one year. After the one-year extension expired, Lowe's discontinued naming rights, and as of the 2010 racing season the racetrack returned to its original name.

The corporation was the primary sponsor for 7-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson in the No. 48 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 and it was a part-time sponsor of the former No. 5 Nationwide Series car; both teams are owned by Hendrick Motorsports. Prior to the current sponsorship deal with Hendrick Motorsports, Lowe's was the sponsor of the No. 31 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing driven by Mike Skinner and Robby Gordon from 1997 to 2001. Prior to the RCR deal, Lowe's was the primary sponsor of the No. 11 Ford