Home Depot 2009 Annual Report Download - page 7

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT PURSUANT TO THE
PRIVATE SECURITIES LITIGATION REFORM ACT OF 1995
Certain statements regarding our future performance constitute “forward-looking statements” as defined in the
Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements may relate to, among other
things, the demand for our products and services, net sales growth, comparable store sales, state of the
economy, state of the residential construction, housing and home improvement markets, state of the credit
markets, including mortgages, home equity loans and consumer credit, commodity price inflation and deflation,
implementation of store initiatives, continuation of reinvestment plans, net earnings performance, earnings per
share, stock-based compensation expense, capital allocation and expenditures, liquidity, the effect of adopting
certain accounting standards, return on invested capital, management of our purchasing or customer credit
policies, the effect of accounting charges, the planned recapitalization of the Company, timing of the
completion of the recapitalization, the ability to issue debt securities on terms and at rates acceptable to us,
impact of cannibalization, store openings and closures and financial outlook.
Forward-looking statements are based on currently available information and our current assumptions,
expectations and projections about future events. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on our forward-
looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to future events,
risks and uncertainties – many of which are beyond our control or are currently unknown to us – as well as
potentially inaccurate assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations and
projections. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those described in Item 1A, “Risk
Factors.”
Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and we do not undertake to update these
statements other than as required by law. You are advised, however, to review any further disclosures we make
on related subjects in our periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”).
PART I
Item 1. Business.
Introduction
The Home Depot, Inc. is the world’s largest home improvement retailer based on Net Sales for the fiscal year
ended January 31, 2010 (“fiscal 2009”). The Home Depot stores sell a wide assortment of building materials,
home improvement and lawn and garden products and provide a number of services. The Home Depot stores
average approximately 105,000 square feet of enclosed space, with approximately 24,000 additional square feet
of outside garden area. As of the end of fiscal 2009, we had 2,244 The Home Depot stores located throughout
the United States including the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the territories of the U.S. Virgin Islands and
Guam (“U.S.”), Canada, China and Mexico.
The Home Depot, Inc. is a Delaware corporation that was incorporated in 1978. Our Store Support Center
(corporate office) is located at 2455 Paces Ferry Road, N.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30339. Our telephone number is
[phone].
We maintain an Internet website at www.homedepot.com. We make available on our website, free of charge,
our Annual Reports to shareholders, Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current
Reports on Form 8-K, Proxy Statements and Forms 3, 4 and 5 as soon as reasonably practicable after filing such
documents with, or furnishing such documents to, the SEC.
We include our website addresses throughout this filing only as textual references. The information contained
on our websites is not incorporated by reference into this report.
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