Rick Stiebel/News staff
News that Lowe’s is closing more than 50 locations in Canada and the U.S. will not impact customers at the home improvement chain’s stores in Langford and Saanich.
Lowe’s announced this week that 31 locations in Canada will close, as well as 20 in the U.S. The only B.C. store affected is the Rona store in Columbia Square in New Westminster. The closures are necessary to focus on the most profitable parts of its home-improvement retail business, the company said in a statement. Lowe’s acquired Quebec-based Rona in 2016 as part of a $3.2 billion purchase that included more than 400 Rona stores across Canada. Regional support centres in Ontario and Newfoundland and a block plant in Kamloops are also closing.
READ MORE: Lowe’s closing 31 Canadian properties, 20 stores in U.S. amid restructuring
Sylvain Prud’homme, president and chief executive officer for Lowe’s Canada, said in a statement “the decision to close stores is never one that we make lightly. However, following a detailed business review, we believe that this is the right path for our organization’s future.” Everything will be done to ensure a smooth transition until the stores are closed, and Lowe’s Canada will support impacted employees, including by transferring eligible employees to other locations within our network whenever possible.”
Lowe’s head office in North Carolina said the Canadian locations will conduct store closing sales at most locations to facilitate an orderly wind-down by the end of the company’s 2018 fiscal year, which is February 2019. “While decisions that impact our associates are never easy, the store closures are a necessary step in our strategic reassessment as we focus on building a stronger business,” Lowe’s president and CEO Marvin Ellison said in a statement. “We believe our people are the foundation of our business and essential to our future growth, and we are making every effort to transition impacted associates to nearby Lowe’s stores.”
Lowe’s and its related businesses operate or service more than 2,390 home improvement and hardware stores in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico that employ more than 310,000 people, with fiscal sales in 2017 totalling $68.6 billion. The majority of stores in the U.S. set to close are located within 10 miles of another location, the company said. Some of the U.S. stores will close immediately.
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