Lowe's To Buy Eagle For $1 Billion

Getting a jump on its planned westward expansion, Lowe's Cos. has agreed to purchase 32-unit Eagle Hardware & Garden for approximately $1 billion.

Eagle will operate as a separate division of Lowe's, retaining its Renton, Wa., corporate offices and current management, except for chairman David Heerensperger, who will pursue other interests. Richard Takata will remain Eagle president and chief operating officer, reporting directly to Lowe's president and ceo Robert Tillman. No one from Eagle will be added to the Lowe's board.

Lowe's will keep the Eagle name in Northwest markets, but convert Eagle stores planned for Phoenix, Az., and California into Lowe's. Other Eagle locations will be "co-branded," according to Tillman, who will use local customer surveys to decide what stores will be called in each market.

Eagle stores will continue carrying all existing categories, but will add Lowe's private brand products and major appliances.

The deal, expected to close during first quarter 1999, was approved by both companies' boards, but awaits shareholder and regulatory approval.

While the acquisition secures prized real estate and removes a competitor, it reportedly won't alter Lowe's previously announced plans to open 100 stores in the West over the next three to four years; the Eagle locations aie in addition to the planned 100 new stores.

"This merger allows Lowe's to accelerate our West Coast expansion program and gives us an immediate presence in a number of key metropolitan markbts in the West," said Lowe's president and ceo Robert Tillman.

North Wilkesboro, N.C.-based Lowe's, the nation's second largest home improvement retailer, operates 465 stores in 26 states. but none west of Texas and Oklahoma.

Oregon Kills Clearcut Ban

By a more than four-to-one margin, Oregon voters have rejected Measure 64, which would have outlawed clearcuts in state and private forestlands.

Considering the proposal radical and unreasonable, opponents funded a serious counterattack, claiming it would eliminate 28,000 jobs. The measure required timber harvesters to leave standing at least 70 well-distributed trees per acre in the western part of the state, and 60 in the less densely wooded eastern portion. It also would have prohibited chemical pesticides, herbicides, and logging any tree more than 30 inches in diameter.

One industry representative described 70 trees per acre as "a very radical definition of a clear cut. There are old growth forests, beautiful cathedral forests, that have fewer than 70 trees per acre."