Rona, Inc.
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Formerly called
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Les Merchands en Quincaillere (1939–1960) |
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| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Home improvement |
| Founded | 1939 |
| Founders | Rolland Dansereau Napoleon Piotte |
| Headquarters | Boucherville, Quebec, Canada |
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Number of locations
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Over 500 |
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Key people
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| Revenue | $4.2 billion CAD (2013) |
 $332.9 million CAD (2009) |
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 $43.2 million CAD (2010) |
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Number of employees
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approx. 51,584 (2010) |
| Parent | Lowe's (2016-present) |
| Website | rona.ca |
Rona, Inc. is a Canadian retailer of home improvement and construction products and services. Founded in 1939, the company operates a mixture of company-owned and franchised retailers under multiple banners, including Rona, its big box formats Rona Home & Garden (Rona L’Entrepôt in Quebec) and Réno-Dépôt, as well as smaller brands such as Rona Cashway, Marcil Centre de Rénovation, and Dick's Lumber. On February 3, 2016, U.S. retailer Lowe's announced that it would acquire Rona for $3.2 billion pending government approval. Lowe's plans to maintain the Rona name in mid-sized stores post-merger.
In 2012, the U.S. hardware store chain Lowe's attempted to buy Rona; however, the deal was met with objections from Rona shareholders (particularly the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec) and franchisees, and was eventually called off. On February 3, 2016, Rona announced that it had accepted an offer to be acquired by Lowe's for CDN$3.2 billion, pending regulatory and shareholder approval. Post-merger, Lowe's plans to maintain Rona's retail banners, and "continue to employ the vast majority of its current employees and maintain key executives from Rona's strong leadership team". Lowe's Canada will be operated from Rona's headquarters in Boucherville, but remain under the leadership of its current CEO Sylvain Prud'homme.
In the 1990s, under competitive pressure from the Home Depot and other big box retailers, Rona established the Rona Home & Garden stores.
Rona Home & Garden stores are large, ranging from 85,000 to 150,000 square feet (14,000 m2), with a warehouse-style similar to the Home Depot and Lowe's. Faced with chronic under-performance in some markets outside of Quebec, Rona closed six big boxes in 2012, five in Ontario and one in British Columbia.
While the Home Depot and Lowe's stores are all company owned, Rona Home & Garden stores are a combination of corporately owned and franchised, despite the massive investment required to build such a store. As big box home improvement stores entered the market, Rona countered by bringing together successful owners of small Rona affiliate stores in Quebec to invest in one or more big box format stores. Many Rona Home & Garden locations in that province thus have local ownership, a tradition of the family hardware store, and a great deal of flexibility to adapt to the market at store level. Most of Rona's big-box format stores in the rest of Canada are entirely corporate-owned.
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