Tom Gale, Author at Modern Distribution Management

Value Lessons from HD Supply
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What's the value of a $12-billion distribution roll-up of a couple dozen companies, roughly doubling in size the past two years, consisting of a highly diversified portfolio of both branch-based and catalog models, in more than half a dozen product categories?
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Rumors are floating $9-11 billion as a potential price. With HDS estimated EBITDA somewhere around $1 billion, that puts the valuation in the range of 9-11X EBITDA. Home Depot paid around 12X EBITDA for Hughes Supply a year ago. But this is definitely a seller's market. HD may feel some Wall Street pressure to jettison the unit quickly, but it also is in the catbird seat. As reported by the Financial Times and <a ...

March 22, 2007

Finance

HD Supply Ship About to Sale

While countless offices in this country have the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship pool sapping the life out of productivity this week, I'm guessing there are at least a few pools estimating the date of sale for Home Depot Supply. I don't know what the Vegas odds are, but the probability is close to 100 percent in my book that we see a deal happen. Here's why I think it will be sooner rather than later.

Home Depot CEO Frank Blake said that it was important to determine a course of action for HD Supply so that the company didn't have a foot on the dock and a foot on the boat, as MDM reported on the company's refocus on retail.

Let's get out the spyglass and look at that statement. If ...

March 14, 2007

Perspective

Commentary: Time to Review Your Review Process

As this first quarter comes to a close, it's a good time to evaluate the annual plan created in September, or in January for those who subscribe to JIT strategic planning. This is when most plans start rotting on the shelf. The end-of-quarter flurry is too hectic to perform a disciplined review. Then a new cycle starts.

Perhaps you know where you are on the most important scale - your own internal sense of behind, on or ahead of plan year-to-date. Your sales force is crystal clear where they are. Most of the time that's good enough. But with as volatile as current markets, customers, competition and the economy are, your company might benefit from a more formal review process with your entire executive team. Consider a different approach to the typical rearview mirror ...

March 10, 2007

Research & Analytics

Commentary: The Let’s-Make-A-Deal Decade in Distribution

Last week saw a feeding frenzy of rumors in distribution, with action on both sides of the Atlantic. The biggest hunters suddenly became the hunted.

The history of independent distribution channels has repeatedly provided pointed lessons that size, more often than not, is the real giant slayer. It is tough to institutionalize flexibility and strong service levels - the hallmark of local distribution - across states, much less international borders. The next few years may tell whether there is an opportunity to create a global platform that doesn't self destruct on its own growth plans.

Some might say too much money is overheating valuations and expectations. The surprise is that the M & A market in distribution (and overall) remains hot in 2007, with most expecting ...

February 25, 2007

Companies

Commentary: Don’t Count Out HD Supply for the Long Haul

As reported by The New York Times this week, it did not take long for private equity firms to call the new HD CEO and wave some serious money (some analysts estimated $9 billion for a division doing about $12B in revenue in 2006) to take the HD Supply distraction off his hands. That is how the mainstream media and some analysts are painting it.

At one level, it wasn't surprising based on the departure of the chief exec last month and the arrival on the board of an activist investor none too happy with the company's wholesale foray into distribution.

For many independent distributors with some memory, it sounds eerily like another lesson in the properties of oil and water. There have been multiple failures of manufacturers trying to run profitable distribution ...

February 10, 2007

Economic Trends

Commentary: Don’t Look in the Rear-View Mirror

As the lead article in this issue illustrates, the inflation threat largely driven in 2005 by energy price hikes has moderated, particularly the last few months of the year. Wholesale prices rose 1.1 percent in 2006, compared to 5.4 percent in 2005. But wholesale prices except food and energy - the core inflation rate - moved up 2 percent in 2006 following a 1.4 percent gain in 2005.

Distributors need to look more closely at the stats in their own sectors, as there are a lot of mixed signals. Materials for durable manufacturing increased 13 percent in 2006; prices for materials/components for construction increased 4.3 percent.

But as these pages pointed out (Adam Fein article in Nov. 10, 2006 MDM), distributors really need to watch steroid revenue growth produced ...

January 25, 2007

Free

Commentary: HD Supply Strategy Bigger Than One Guy

Hype and speculation tend to follow an industry consolidator. The announcement last week that Home Depot CEO Bob Nardelli was ousted from his position over pay issues and lagging stock gains generated an inordinate amount of buzz. Some even claimed it is a repudiation of the Home Depot model itself and its relatively recent strategy to aggressively grow the wholesale distribution division.

Hardly. All we know versus a week ago is that HD has $210 million less to fund acquisition activities that instead went to Mr. Nardelli's severance package (Wouldn't you like to be chastised like that?). Now that will really slow the acquisition pace of HD Supply….

What's lost in the shock value of the pay deal is that Home Depot's net income in the most recent quarter, ended ...