Not Home Depot, Not Walmart – Here's Who Owns Lowe's

The notion of massive corporate monopolies is one that often gives consumers a reason to be wary. That's why many people go down the rabbit hole of company ownership, because it's good to know where your money's really going. When it comes to Lowe's, a random online rumor suggests that either Walmart or even Lowe's top competitor, Home Depot, is the owner. But in actuality, Lowe's isn't owned by any one entity.

Lowe's, the home improvement corporation that owns four tool brands, is a publicly traded company. This means that Lowe's isn't owned by a single parent organization, with true ownership instead being distributed among its shareholders. Some of Lowe's biggest shareholders are large investment firms, including JPMorgan Chase, as well as BlackRock and The Vanguard Group, both of which own stock in Ford Motor Company. These three firms together hold a major portion of the company's institutional shares, around 21.1  percent.

In fact, nearly 3,800 institutions combined own nearly 498 million shares, around 79 percent, of Lowe's stock. Meanwhile, individual investors and the general public own about 21 percent. Insiders, most often believed to be board members, own less than 1 percent of the company. All of this means that no single shareholder has a controlling ownership majority. However, institutional investors together likely have more influence than anyone else over company decisions.

Before Lowe's went public in 1961, the company was owned by H. Carl Buchan. Buchan was one of the two original founders, next to his brother-in-law and business partner James Lowe. Lowe had sold his part of the company to Buchan in the 1950s. Buchan took Lowe's from a single hardware store in North Carolina to a chain of stores across the state. Business increased as the company continued to expand over the years, and by 1982, Lowe's had its first billion-dollar sales year.

Lowe's is now the second-largest home improvement company in the world, right behind Home Depot. Even though Home Depot wasn't founded until 1978, the company achieved rapid growth and expansion through the years, both domestically and internationally. This growth led to Home Depot taking the lead over Lowe's by the early 1990s. Since then, the two companies have provided customers with competitive prices and products, becoming a massive 1-2 punch in the home improvement market.

As of November 2025, Lowe's has 1,759 stores across all 50 states and U.S. territories, selling a wide selection of tools, equipment, and home improvement products you didn't realize existed. With a 2025 3rd quarter profit of $1.6 billion on $20.8 billion in sales, the company remains a major player. Online sales rose by 11 percent in 2025, as professionals continued to be the company's driving force. Lowe's is forecasting a total of $86 billion in sales for the entire year.