Home Depot Discusses HD Supply Acquisition

Shortly after posting strong earnings growth for all of 2020, but stopping short of providing an outlook for 2021, Home Depot held its quarterly earnings call where reporters asked questions on two main topics: the Pro customer and the acquisition of HD Supply.

Home Depot Chairman and CEO Craig Menear told reporters he is “thrilled” to have HD Supply again, adding that he believes there is a multi-billion dollar opportunity. “They are clearly a leader in the MRO space,” Menear told reporters. “And it really strengthens our position in a $55 billion fragmented market opportunity. And so, we’re super excited about that. We’re going to take our time and look at how we encompass all the assets that exist between the formerly Interline and now HD Supply and we’ll put a plan together that will allow us to use all that asset base to be able to grow and capture share in the MRO market. We’re super excited about that opportunity.”

Ted Decker, President and Chief Operating Officer for Home Depot added that the HD Supply acquisition provides an opportunity to attract new customers. “I mean, this is a distribution business. And we’re looking at integrating the two supply chains to, by far, the leading national distribution network. And then increasingly digital, transacting digitally and being able to put the capabilities that we have built with our digital assets for the consumer business, our B2B assets, and HD Supply starts with a very healthy and well-performing site as well. And then add the sales force in thousands of folks on the street with, by far, the largest distribution sales force in this space. So you put all that together, you have a much stronger calling card when you go to see new and prospective customers.”

Home Depot also took some time during the conference call to talk about gains in the Pro customer category. Decker described the company’s fourth quarter as “the best quarter of growth for 2020.” Decker also said Home Depot is seeing growth in both small and large Pro customers. “As we’ve mentioned all year, our smaller Pro customers maintained consistent growth and posted strong double-digit growth in every month of the quarter,” Decker said. “Growth from our larger Pro customers continued to accelerate, also growing double digits each month of the quarter. While the operating environment is still recovering for many of our larger Pro customers, we’re encouraged by what we’re seeing and hearing as backlogs are growing.”

Decker did admit that he does not have his own evidence of backlogs expanding, but did say he is hearing his Pro customers talking about it and believes it is true.