Lumber Liquidators: Raid by feds sinks stock

Lumber Liquidators stock falls 5 percent after it discloses that federal authorities raided its corporate offices because of questions about imports of wood-flooring products. Lumber Liquidators has more than 300 hardwood-flooring stores in North America.

|
Sigit Pamungkas/Reuters/File
A worker marks a log owned by timber company PT Larasati Multisentosa in Pasuruan, Indonesia's East Java province, in 2012. A global trade in illegal timber worth billions of dollars has put Western retailers in a tough spot. On Thursday, federal authorities raided the headquarters of wood flooring retailer Lumber Liquidators in Toano, Va.

Federal authorities on Thursday executed a search warrant at the Virginia headquarters of hardwood flooring retailer Lumber Liquidators.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations spokesman Brandon Montgomery said the warrant was executed at the company's Toano, Va., headquarters and a Lumber Liquidators business location in suburban Richmond in coordination with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of Justice.

On Friday, the company disclosed that federal authorities searched its corporate offices in an action related to imports of wood flooring products. Its stock dropped $5.83, or 5 percent, to $107.13 after that announcement. 

In a statement, the company said it is cooperating to provide information and documentation to "answer questions relating to the importation of certain products." 

Lumber Liquidators Holdings Inc. has more than 305 stores in North America.

In July, Lumber Liquidators said its second-quarter net income jumped nearly 68 percent to $20.4 million as its revenue rose to $257.1 million and lower costs increased its profit margins. It also announced plans to construct a new East Coast distribution center outside Richmond and lease another facility in California to help make its supply chain more efficient.

The stock has traded between $47.31 and $115.59 in the past 52 weeks, and has more than doubled since the start of the year.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Lumber Liquidators: Raid by feds sinks stock
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2013/0928/Lumber-Liquidators-Raid-by-feds-sinks-stock
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe