Once upon a time — 2006 to be exact — in a not far away land, Home Depot sold MRO products to the industrial and commercial markets. Top executives at Home Depot determined their strategy should be to focus on homeowners and home contractors, so they spun off MRO products into an entity dubbed HD Supply.
Part of that strategy included establishing Home Depot Pro, which has increased the threat to traditional PHCP, HVAC and PVF distributors. Now, top executives at Home Depot have determined their next strategy should be to also sell to those same industrial and commercial markets that were abandoned 14 years ago. But, rather than start from scratch, the company opted to buy HD Supply (for reportedly some $1.6 billion less than they received in 2007).