Roofers tend to be loyal to their suppliers, so it’s doubtful that SRS Distribution’s market share vs. ABC Supply and Beacon will change much because it’s now owned by The Home Depot. But that might not be the point of this $18.25 billion acquisition. Rather, you could say that what The Home Depot bought was a tool for growth in the pro space.

Consider that, over its lifetime, SRS has entered and built multi-billion operations in three different verticals: roofing, landscaping, and pool supply. Each time, it identified the opportunity, bought companies, built greenfield locations and created multi-billion-dollar businesses. Along the way it learned how to import acquired companies quickly into its tech ecosystem. And it has a lot of experience with trade credit.

We know that The Home Depot wants to increase sales to the pro. To do so, odds are that it will need to get deeper into various parts of construction than it can as a home center. With SRS, it has a division experienced in exploiting whatever opportunities it decides to pursue.