Home Depot Inc. announced Feb. 12 it might sell or spin off HD Supply, its wholesale building-supply business, reversing a strategy that counted on sales to professional contractors and homebuilders to account for $25 billion of the retailer’s revenue in just three more years.
"We are undertaking this action today because of our desire to increase our focus on our retail business,” said Frank Blake, the company’s CEO and chairman. With its retail store sales lagging and its stock going nowhere, Home Depot has been under pressure from investors to take a fresh look at its operations. Getting rid of HD Supply, if such a move were to go forward, represents a huge step away from the non-retail business strategy of Blake’s predecessor, Robert Nardelli.