ATLANTA — The Home Depot Inc. yesterday reported a 14.8 percent drop in second-quarter profit. The results beat Wall Street expectations, but its shares fell after executives' comments suggested that the sale of the company's wholesale distribution business may not be a lock.

Chief financial officer Carol Tome said during an investor conference call that the world's largest home-improvement store chain would have to cut its plan to repurchase up to $22.5 billion in company stock by nearly half if the sale of its HD Supply unit falls through.

Later, she told the Associated Press she was "just trying to do the math" for an analyst who asked her about the issue.

At the same time, Tome told the Associated Press that when the company sized its stock repurchase plan, it did so based on the expected proceeds from HD Supply.

Neither she nor chief executive Frank Blake said the agreement to sell HD Supply to a group of private equity firms for $10.3 billion was in danger, but they did talk openly about the implications if the deal announced in June falls through.

For the first half of its fiscal year, Home Depot said it earned $2.63 billion, or $1.34 a share, compared with a profit of $3.35 billion, or $1.60 a share, in the same period a year ago. Six-month revenue fell 3 percent to $40.73 billion, compared with $41.97 billion a year earlier.

Home Depot reiterated that it expects its earnings per share from continuing operations to decline by 12 percent to 15 percent for fiscal 2007.

Home Depot shares fell $1.72, or 4.9 percent, to $33.52 yesterday.