Dozens of Lowe's and Rona stores closing in Canada

American home improvement juggernaut Lowe's just announced the "wind-down" of roughly half its retail stores across Canada — the majority of them former RONA locations.

A press release from the North Carolina-based Fortune 500 company says that it will be closing 31 "underperforming" Canadian stores (as well as 20 in the U.S.) by February 2019 to focus on more profitable ventures.

Nine stores are slated for closure in Ontario, including the Lowe's at Centrepoint Mall in North York and two Rona locations in Mississauga.

Lowe's is said to have 62 Canadian stores currently, though its northern portfolio grew by leaps and bounds in 2016 when it purchased the formerly Quebec-based Rona (and its more than 500 stores).

Upon closing the deal, Lowe's said that it would be converting as many as 40 big box Rona stores into Lowe's locations, but that it would otherwise expand the Canadian brand's presence. 

"There's no intention to remove Rona," said Lowe's Canada president Sylvain Prud'Homme in December of 2016. "There's a couple of stores that we will make sure are actually creating the right value proposition for these customers, but we are going to grow Rona."

Hundreds of Rona stores still exist across Canada, though fans of the brand should note that 24 of the 31 Canadian stores being closed by Lowe's at the end of this fiscal year are Ronas.