Yes. The managements get together and discuss possible joint approaches to
products, marketing and store layouts. They have quite a lot of activities
in common and it is expected that Home Depot will buy B & Q (Kingfisher)
when the time is right. I also believe that they have similar stock control
etc software systems. At the moment, the exchange rate is wrong. You can
expect to see more jointly sourced products because the buying power
increases with the increased volume. B & Q are very cautious over
introducing US or EU products into the UK stores, but I'd expect this to
happen more and more over the next couple of years. There is still a marked
gap between what the top managers are thinking and what the buyers are
actually doing, as can be seen by comparing the websites for Castorama and B
& Q.

Regards
Capitol