Lowe's

Lowe's Companies, Inc. ( ) 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. As of October 28, 2022, Lowe's and its related businesses operated 2,181 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 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.

The company previously operated in Australia through the Masters Home Improvement joint venture until 2016, in Mexico until 2019, and in Canada until selling its operations (which will be consolidated under the Rona brand) to Sycamore Partners in 2023.

History

The first Lowe's store, Mr. L.S. Lowe's 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, for $4,200, that same year. James took on his brother-in-law H. 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. Buchan and Lowe started the concept of procuring large quantities of products directly from manufacturers, which eliminated the wholesaler and allowed them to offer customers lower prices. The company opened its second store 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.

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. By 1970s, Lowe's revenue reached more than $150 million and, in 1980, to nearly $900 million.

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.

In 2023, Lowe's sold its Canadian retail business, based in Boucherville, Quebec, to Sycamore Partners for $400 million in cash. They will all be consolidated into Rona stores.

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.

Seventy five percent of the company's revenue comes from do it yourself consumers.

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 employed over 2,400 people until 2019. In 2011, Lowe's invested $10 million in improvements and renovations in the property, including a full-service food court, coffee shop, and health center, as well as gating the entire property with an addition of a guardhouse. All positions have since been relocated and the former Wilkes corporate office is vacant, although still owned by Lowe's.

In addition to Wilkesboro, Lowe's formerly operated a customer contact center in Albuquerque, New Mexico, both of which quietly closed in 2023. Currently, customer contact centers remain in Indianapolis, Indiana 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 whom 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

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