Home Depot to Close 15 Stores, Curb Openings

Atlanta Home Depot on Thursday said it plans to close 15 underperforming stores and will curb future store openings.

The home-improvement retailer said it will no longer pursue the opening of about 50 stores that had been in its new-store pipeline. New-store spending will be cut by about $1 billion over the next three years.

Home Depot said it expects a charge of about $586 million tied to the moves, with about $547 million pretax to be recognized in its first quarter.

Excluding this charge, the company reiterated that per-share profit is expected to fall as much as 24% for the year.