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Home Depot Needs to Rebuild Customer Service. Shareholder Recommends Shopping at Lowe's Instead.

Many can recall when the first Home Depot stores opened up in their region. Home improvement retail chains such as Pergament and Rickel quickly folded when they could not meet Home Depot's lower prices. With over $5 billion in annual sales, Home Depot seems to have a successful sales strategy and price advantage over it's competitors.

I myself, have been a long time loyal Home Depot customer and shareholder of Home Depot stock (and continue to be as of writing this article on October 6, 2005).

So when a company is in a dominant position in their industry, what could possibly cause Home Depot to lose sales and market share ?

After going through the worst retail experience ever with the Home Depot store located at 980 3rd Avenue in New York City, I can no longer support shopping at this retailer. Instead, I highly recommend you take your business to Lowe's instead.

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© Nelson Chin Corporate Conflicts. All rights reserved. No reproduction of this article in any format including electronic is allowed without the expressed written consent of the author.

A jury convicted Tyco's ex-CEO Dennis Kozlowski and former CFO, Mark H. Swartz, of defrauding nearly $600 million from the company to finance opulent lifestyles. They face up to 30 years in prison. cont'd...

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More details...

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Adelphia, and ex-CEO Rigas to settle fraud case. Rigas already facing 15 years in prison.

Adelphia Communications Corp. ('Adelphia") will pay approximately $715 million to settle ''one of the most extensive financial fraud ever to take place at a public company," according to a statement issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Ex-CEO John Rigas along with other family members, will forfeit a total of $1.5 billion in assets to create a fund to compensate victims of ''one of the most extensive financial fraud ever to take place at a public company.''

Full commentary ...

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  Commentary

The Supreme Court overturned the 2002 conviction of accounting firm Arthur Andersen ("Andersen") related to destroying documents from their audit of Enron Corporation. The ruling unanimously stated that the jury instructions were too broad.

The reversal of the conviction is a bittersweet symbolic victory for the 25,000 employees that were let go as a result of the original jury verdict. Continued ..

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Identity theft, a growing concern.

As technology makes it easier and easier for individuals and businesses to conduct more transactions online, there should be more of a concern regarding security. Security has not kept up with the technology.

Information is being stored online in so many databases worldwide that when there is a breach in security, it's often difficult if not impossible to determine how the data was obtained.

There are so certain safeguards one should take as a precaution.

1) Update all your passwords on a regular basis.

2) Make sure the passwords are not identical. With the growing number of online accounts requiring passwords, it's difficult to remember a unique password for every account. As such, individuals often use the same password for the majority of their accounts. Once an unauthorized individual has access to one of your passwords, it's likely all your accounts have now become compromised.
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Federal prosecutors are investigating whether KPMG advised clients to participate in dubious tax shelters.

The Justice Department has been investigating KPMG and some former partners for promoting the sales of tax shelters from 1996 through 2002 for wealthy individuals. The shelters allegedly violated the tax laws and yielded large advisory fees for KPMG while costing the government as much as $1.4 billion in lost revenue.

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Japan shuts down Citigroup Private Banking Unit.

Corporate Conflicts of Interest at Citigroup (C): Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA) has ordered Citigroup to shut down its private banking operations in Japan. Regulators said they found a list of problems at Citigroup's private banking arm, from improper trading practices to lax anti-money laundering procedures.

For the full story...

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Outgoing CEO's Favorite Toy? The Golden Parachute.

Since joining the Toys R Us as CEO in 2000, John H, Eyler has seen the beleaguered company steadily losing market share to discounters such as Wal-Mart. Eyler's annual total compensation is approximately $2 million, split evenly between cash and bonus.

With shareholders approving a $6.6 billion buyout, just how much is Eyler's
Golden Parachute?

© Nelson Chin Corporate Conflicts.