Hechinger

7/8 TC This Landover-based chain of do-it-yourself home centers reported that sales were up 17.7 percent and earnings rose 28.1 percent in its second fiscal quarter, compared with the same period a year ago. Comparable-store sales were up 1 percent.While revenues and earnings for the first half of the year were higher as well, comparable-store sales were flat.Hechinger President John Hechinger Jr. called the period "one of the most successful quarters we have experienced in some time, reflecting improved customer demand and a gradual improvement in the health of our regional economy."

John Ronald McGrath, a former home-improvement store executive and liquor store owner, died Wednesday at Anne Arundel Medical Center of a heart attack. He was 71. Known as "Jack," Mr. McGrath was born and raised in Burlington, Vt. He worked for Hechinger Co. for 27 years, retiring as a vice president. He helped open the first store of the chain in the Annapolis area in 1973, said his son, Kevin McGrath of Stevensonville. Mr. McGrath, who lived on Weems Creek in Annapolis, opened and operated Muddy Creek Liquors in Edgewater for 10 years, before retiring again about three years ago, his son said.

Hechinger Co. joined other home-improvement retailers in posting disappointing first-quarter profits and blaming the weather.The Landover-based chain earned just $1.2 million during the 13 weeks that ended April 29, down 75 percent from what it earned in the same period last year and less than half what many financial analysts had predicted.As recently as two weeks ago, analysts had expected Hechinger to make roughly 13 cents a share for the quarter. After the company cautioned that it would miss that target, analysts downgraded their predictions to the range of 8 cents.

Mr. Hechinger led the family business, Hechinger Co., from 1958 to 1996. During his tenure, the company grew to a multibillion-dollar enterprise with more than 100 stores in the East and the Midwest. The company filed for bankruptcy in 1999, unable to compete with discount home industry giants like Home Depot and Lowes. Mr. Hechinger was a committed supporter of District of Columbia home rule. In 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson replaced the three-man board of district commissioners with a new mayor-council style of government and appointed Mr. Hechinger chairman of the first council, a post he held for two years.

The Hechinger Co. is launching a special program, "Save Aluminum Cans -- Save the Bay," at 10 a.m. with a "can-cutting" ceremony at its Glen Burnie store, 6704 Governor Ritchie Highway.Hechinger stores will provide recycling bins for cans. All proceeds will be donated tothe Chesapeake Bay Foundation.The program began last September, when a number of Valu Food stores joined forces with the Anne Arundel County school system to raise about $2,000.Recycling aluminum protects landfills, eliminates litter and preserves natural resources.

Using feedback from 3,500 customers, Landover-based Hechinger Co. said yesterday it is redesigning all of its home-improvement stores, starting with the renovation of its Glen Burnie store at 6704 Ritchie Highway."

Hechinger Co., unable to halt its financial tailspin in August, reported yesterday a fifth consecutive month of sales declines.Overall sales for the Landover-based home improvement chain dropped 15 percent, to $159.7 million, compared with $187 million in August 1994.August sales in stores that have been open at least a year -- a key indicator of retail performance because it factors out new stores -- fell 13 percent, after declines of 6 percent in July, 7 percent in June, 8 percent in May and 10 percent in April.

Mired in a four-month slump, Hechinger Co. announced yesterday sweeping changes in operations and top management, cutbacks in personnel and a retrenchment in store openings.The Landover-based chain of home improvement stores is merging its two subsidiaries -- Hechinger Stores and Home Quarters Warehouse -- under one management team, which the company projects will result in a $20 million to $25 million pretax charge, but will ultimately mean about $20 million in annual pretax savings once the merger is completed by late next year.

Hechinger Co., the Landover-based home-center chain that has been growing across the East by a dozen warehouse-style stores a year, disclosed yesterday that it will make a geographic and cultural leap by opening four stores in Mexico City next year.The move offers huge opportunities but also risks. The Mexican market for do-it-yourself home goods is enormous, although nobody seems to have gauged it precisely. Hechinger won't disclose its own measurement.Mexican homeowners are numerous. They typically don't have mortgages, so often they aren't as cash-strapped as their U.S. counterparts.

No stranger lately to bad news, Hechinger Co. was told yesterday that $338 million of its debt was further downgraded by Standard & Poor's Corp., with the rating agency saying the Landover-based home improvement chain can't effectively fight its competition."

Klaff Realty LP said yesterday that it had closed on a $5.9 million deal to acquire 11 sites from Hechinger Co., the bankrupt home improvement retailer. At seven of the sites, Klaff will assume Hechinger leases. At the other four -- including a 0.6-acre parcel on Security Boulevard in Woodlawn -- Klaff is acquiring vacant land. The sites were among more than 100 locations put up for sale last fall, after Hechinger Co. ended efforts to reorganize in bankruptcy and ceased operations, Matthew Feldman, a New York lawyer representing Hechinger, said yesterday.

Hechinger Co., the bankrupt home improvement retailer that is going out of business, has sold the leases for seven of its Baltimore area stores, including three that will be operated by Home Depot Inc., Kohl's Department Stores Inc. and the owner of Value City and Value City Furniture. The Maryland-based chain, which announced in September that it would shut down rather than continue to restructure under Chapter 11, said yesterday that it has approved bids for 46 leases offered in an auction Tuesday in New York.

ON SUNDAY, the early birds flocked to Hechinger's to catch bargains. By 8: 30 a.m., when many folks are getting up on a Sunday, the big parking lot at the Snowden Square shopping center was half full of sedans, pickup trucks and minivans. Not unusual for the "world's most unusual lumberyard" -- as the company's logo once read. But now, all sales at the big-box hardware store are final, and the Hechinger Co. will be reduced to a notation in bankruptcy court records. Company executives expect to close the chain by mid-December.

Rowena Allen doesn't know where she'll buy her paint, tools, flowers and light fixtures after the end of the year when the Hechinger at North Plaza shuts its doors for good. Maybe Sears."I'm very upset. It's been my store," Allen said yesterday while shopping for earplugs at Hechinger, reacting to news of the home-grown Maryland chain closing all 117 stores by year's end. "Home Depot doesn't do it for me."Like Allen, other shoppers lamented the loss of the warehouse-style hardware and home-improvement stores they've become familiar with, a chain that sprouted from a single store in Washington in 1919.

Hechinger Co.'s announcement that it will close its remaining stores begs a basic question: who's going to occupy all that space left behind by one of the Baltimore area's oldest and most entrenched retail chains?It's a question that is likely to intrigue the commercial real estate community for some time to come.Susan B. Anderson, vice president of H & R Retail Inc. in Timonium, called the liquidation and dispersion of the Hechinger properties "a big deal."She said the sheer diversity of the chain's holdings makes it impossible to generalize about what will become of the properties.

Hechinger Co., once the standard by which home-improvement chains were measured, will close its doors for good by the end of the year.Just three months after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, officials of the 88-year-old Largo-based chain said yesterday that its remaining 117 stores would be closed and its assets liquidated to pay off creditors.The company employed more than 12,000 people.Hechinger said it will dispose of its inventory through a going-out-of-business sale at its Hechinger, Home Quarters and Builders Square stores, which will begin immediately.

WASHINGTON -- Hechinger Co.'s sales have improved this month after a disappointing May, when bad weather kept fertilizer and lawn mower buyers away, company President and Chief Executive John W. Hechinger Jr. told investors yesterday."

A U.S. bankruptcy judge has approved Hechinger Co.'s plan to spend $6.3 million to retain more than 12,000 employees, the Largo-based home improvement retailer said yesterday.The troubled chain, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection June 11, said its plan covers all employees -- except senior managers -- who work at its remaining 117 stores, the headquarters in Largo and a support services building in Virginia Beach, Va.Under the plan, employees will receive retention bonuses and sales achievement incentives.