Handy Dan Home Improvement was an American home improvement store founded by Amnon Barness, an Israeli immigrant. It went out of business in May, 1989.
By 1972, the company operated 30 stores in California, Texas, Arizona and Oklahoma. It made an initial offering in November, which led to Daylin, Inc. owning 81% of Handy Dan. [1] Daylin filed for bankruptcy in February 1975, though its subsidiaries were not included in the Chapter 11 proceedings. [2] Handy Dan was one of the few assets the company didn't sell during this time. [3]
Bernard Marcus was CEO of Handy Dan in 1978 when he was fired along with company vice president Arthur Blank amid a corporate power struggle with Daylin CEO Sanford C. Sigoloff. Marcus and Blank went on to found Home Depot. [4] [5]
Daylin was purchased by W. R. Grace and Company in 1979. [6] In 1986, Grace's retail home improvement division, which included Handy Dan and Channel Home Centers, was sold to the division's executives through a leveraged buyout. [7]
Handy Dan played a major role in getting Texas's religion-based blue laws repealed in 1984 by opening on Sunday and using white price stickers for goods that could be sold seven days a week, and blue price stickers for items that could not be sold on Sunday. [8]
Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the following decades, a series of acquisitions made it into one of the largest publishers in the United States. In 2013, it was merged with Penguin Group to form Penguin Random House, which is owned by the Germany-based media conglomerate Bertelsmann. Penguin Random House uses its brand for Random House Publishing Group and Random House Children's Books, as well as several imprints.
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Arthur Morris Blank is an American businessman. He is best known for being a co-founder of the home improvement retailer The Home Depot.
Bernard Marcus was an American billionaire businessman. He co-founded Home Depot. He was the company's first CEO and first chairman until retiring in 2002. In November 2024, Forbes estimated his net worth at US$11 billion.
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Waldbaum's was a supermarket chain with stores in the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx; and in Nassau, Suffolk counties and Upstate New York. The chain also for a time operated stores in New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Founded in 1904, Waldbaum's was one of seven "banner store chains" owned and operated by The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P), which acquired the chain from its founding family in 1986.
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W. R. Grace and Co. is an American chemical business based in Columbia, Maryland. It produces specialty chemicals and specialty materials in two divisions: Grace Catalysts Technologies, which makes polyethylene and polypropylene catalysts and related products and technologies used in petrochemical, refining, and other chemical manufacturing applications, and Grace Materials and Chemicals, which makes specialty materials, including silica-based and silica-alumina-based materials, which are used in commercial products such as sunscreen and in chemical process applications.
Handy Andy Home Improvement Centers was founded as Arrow Lumber Company by Joseph Rashkow in 1947 on the south side of Chicago. His son, Ronald Rashkow, bought out the single store operation in 1967 from his father. He converted the company to Handy Andy in 1971 with its first expansion unit. The company grew to 72 stores in seven American states. At its peak, the company had approximately 11,000 employees and annual revenue of $750 million. The chain advertised with the phrase "Handy Andy, you've got it made". The company's core product mix included hardware, lumber, building materials, home decor, kitchen/bath and lawn/garden. The stores were highly visible and well known for their very large vertical stripes of brown and white that would typically cover the entire building.
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Ronald M. Brill is an American former retail businessman and is a co-founder of the Home Depot. He worked with Arthur Blank and Bernard Marcus at Handy Dan Home Improvement and was fired from that company at the same time they were. Brill was Home Depot's first official employee. He worked with Home Depot for over 20 years, serving as the company's Chief Administration Officer from 1995-2000.
The Home Depot, Inc. is an American multinational home improvement retail corporation that sells tools, construction products, appliances, and services, including fuel and transportation rentals. Home Depot is the largest home improvement retailer in the United States. In 2021, the company had 490,600 employees and more than $151 billion in revenue. The company is headquartered in unincorporated Cobb County, Georgia, with an Atlanta mailing address.
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Daylin, Inc. was a major retail conglomerate based in Los Angeles and later Beverly Hills, California. Its best-known unit was Handy Dan Improvement Centers, which preceded Home Depot in the market niche the latter came to dominate. The company also briefly owned London Drugs as well as Great Eastern, which gave rise to Linens 'n Things.