We are interested in comparing The Home Depot, Inc. and Lowe's Companies, Inc., the two giant retailers in home improvement and construction products and services, in terms of their inventory turns and inventory costs. (a)[2] You need to find official corporate data for 2015 to fill in the first part of the table below. Specifically, you need to locate annual reports and 10K fillings for 2015 as follows: The Home Depot, Inc.: http://corporate.homedepot.com/ Lowe's Companies, Inc.: http://www.lowes.com/ and find "Investor Relations" Note that you can calculate gross profits and gross profit margins from relevant data.

Part 1 Indicators in 2015 Home Depot Lowe's End of fiscal year (date) Net sales (millions of $) Gross profit (millions of $) COGS (millions of $) Merchandise Inventory (millions of $) Gross profit margin (%, 2 decimals) Annual inventory cost (%, 2 decimals) 25.00% 25.00% Part 2 Inventory Turns Home Depot Lowe's Inventory duration (days, 2 decimals) Inventory turns (turns per year, 2 decimals) Part 3 Inventory Costs Home Depot Lowe's A cordless drill ($) 100.00 100.00 Perunit inventory cost rate (%, 2 decimals) Perunit inventory cost ($) Perunit inventory cost difference (Lowes HomeDepot, $) Perunit gross profit ($) Perunit gross profit minus Perunit holding cost ($) Assume that the average annual inventory holding cost rate is 25% for both companies; there are 365 days of operations a year; and price and inventory turns are independent. For the following parts, show equations and calculations, and fill the final results in the table. (b)[2] What is the average number of days that a product typically stays in the two companies' inventories until being sold (inventory duration)? (2 decimals) (c)[1] What are the inventory turns a year at these two retailers? (2 decimals) (d)[1] What are the perunit inventory cost rates at the two companies? (%, 2 decimals) (e)[2] Regarding equivalent cordless drills with the same unit cost of $100, which retailer has the lower perunit inventory cost and by how much? (Dollar amounts) (f)[2] Find the average gross profit on an inventory merchandise investment of $100. Using your result in part (e), find the average gross profit net of inventory holding cost of $100. Regarding the latter (net) indicator, which company has the higher value?