Home Depot to close its 11 Landscape Supply stores

<p>The Home Depot Inc., the world's largest home improvement store chain, plans to close its 11 Landscape Supply stores within the next two months, a company official said Wednesday.</p><p>The closures of the five stores in the Atlanta area and six stores in the Dallas area are part of Home Depot's efforts to focus more resources on its core retail business, spokesman Ron DeFeo said.</p><p>About 380 employees will be affected by the closure of Landscape Supply. DeFeo said he did not know how many, if any, would lose their jobs. Internal job fairs will be held Friday to assist the employees in finding new positions, DeFeo said.</p><p>Home Depot's first Landscape Supply store opened in 2002. The stores catered to the specific needs of the professional customer, as well as the project-oriented do-it-yourselfer.</p><p>The stores included a greenhouse and sold products including interior plants, chemicals, pavers and irrigation supplies. It also offered landscaping tool rental.</p><p>DeFeo said the company does not provide sales figures for Landscape Supply.</p><p>Home Depot has no plans to close any more of its Expo Design Center stores, DeFeo said. In 2005, Home Depot closed 15 of its 54 Expo stores and converted another five to The Home Depot store format.</p><p>The Atlanta-based company has said it plans to focus more attention on its core business. As part of that, it sold its wholesale distribution business, HD Supply, to a group of private equity groups for $8.5 billion. The sale was completed in August.</p><p>Home Depot has said that it would use the proceeds from the sale of HD Supply to partly fund a buyback of up to $22.5 billion in company shares.</p><p>Home Depot operates more than 2,000 stores in the United States, Canada, Mexico and China.</p><p>___</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>HASH(0x2debeb8)</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2007/9/90365