The Home Depot (nyse: HD) is an American retailer of home improvement and construction products and services. Headquartered in Vinings, just outside Atlanta, The Home Depot employs more than 355,000 people and operates 2,141 big-box format stores across the United States (including the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Guam), Canada (ten provinces), Mexico and China. The world's second-largest Home Depot (as of the end of 2007) opened November 14, 2007 on the island of Guam.

The Home Depot is the largest home-improvement retailer in the United States, ahead of rival Lowe's, and the second-largest general retailer in the United States, behind only Wal-Mart.

History

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The Home Depot was founded in 1978 by Bernie Marcus, Arthur Blank, Ron Brill, and Pat Farrah. The Home Depot's proposition was to build home-improvement warehouses, larger than any of their competitors' facilities. Investment banker Ken Langone helped Marcus and Blank to secure the necessary capital.

In 1979, the first two stores, built in spaces leased from J. C. Penney that were originally Treasure Island "hypermarket" (discount department and grocery) stores, opened in metro Atlanta on June 22. Two more opened not long after, and all four shared the space under the "squiggly" zig-zag roof with Zayre on its right side. The first headquarters was on Terrell Mill Road on the southeast side of Marietta, Georgia, just down from one of the stores at the corner of Cobb Parkway. (That store , in the Marietta Plaza strip mall, became Value City, changing to Burlington Coat Factory in 2008; part was also a short-lived Little Bucks, in which Brill had a stake.) Since the 1990s, its current headquarters ( ) is a high-rise building on Paces Ferry Road, on the western edge of the Cumberland/Galleria edge city in unincorporated Cobb County, Georgia, across Interstate 285 from the town of Vinings, and served by mail from Atlanta.

In 2000, after the retirement of Marcus and Blank, Robert Nardelli was appointed chairman, president, and CEO. Nardelli was replaced in January 2007 by Frank Blake.

In 2007 the Home Depot sold its USD $13 billion revenue wholesale division, HD Supply, to a consortium of three private equity firms.

The Home Depot today

Its 2006 sales totaled US$90.8 billion (US$77.0 billion in retail sales). Despite the 10% increase in revenue, it dropped three spots to #17 on the 2007 FORTUNE magazine's FORTUNE 500 list (it was #13 in 2005 and #14 in 2006). The Home Depot also owns EXPO Design Center, a chain of higher-end home decorating and appliance stores. In 2006, the Home Depot acquired Hughes Supply which is to be assimilated into HD Supply serving contractors. In September 2005, Home Depot Direct launched its high-end online home-furnishings store, 10 Crescent Lane, shortly followed by the launch of Paces Trading Company, its high-end online lighting store. In mid 2006, the Home Depot acquired Home Decorators Collection which was placed as an additional brand under its Home Depot Direct Division. Home Depot Landscape Supply, with only a few stores each in metro Atlanta and Dallas/Fort Worth, was founded in 2002 and closed in late 2007.