A decisive acquisition, quantified: GMS closes and leverage moves to the mid‑2x band#
Home Depot’s purchase of GMS Inc. for roughly $5.5 billion, which closed on Sept. 4, 2025, is the immediate, material development that reshapes the company’s capital picture and strategic footprint. The company finished fiscal 2025 with $60.63 billion of net debt and $25.43 billion of reported EBITDA; those two figures produce a fiscal‑year net‑debt‑to‑EBITDA of 2.38x on a pre‑GMS, pro forma basis (Net debt $60.63B ÷ EBITDA $25.43B = 2.38x) according to Home Depot’s fiscal filings and the company’s FY2025 financials Home Depot Investor Relations. The GMS purchase, depending on financing mix, plausibly raises pro‑forma leverage to the mid‑2x range that management has publicly described as temporary and manageable.
That leverage move is meaningful because Home Depot sits on abundant underlying cash generation: fiscal 2025 free cash flow was $16.32 billion and operating cash flow was $19.81 billion, figures that give the company capacity to service incremental debt while pursuing integration and deleveraging Home Depot FY2025 financials. The strategic case for GMS is explicit — scale in specialty trade distribution to accelerate Home Depot’s professional (