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Home Depot’s latest deal signals a strategic shift in M&A

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Good morning. Retailer Home Depot has been in business for nearly 50 years, and its disciplined approach to dealmaking has contributed to its solid growth.

That’s the topic my colleague Phil Wahba explores in a new Fortune article. Home Depot, No. 24 on the Fortune 500, announced this week that one of its business units is acquiring building-products distributor GMS (Gypsum Management and Supply) for about $4.3 billion, prevailing in a bidding war. The deal follows Home Depot’s $18 billion acquisition last year of SRS Distribution (which is the entity actually buying GMS)—the largest acquisition in the company’s history.

According to Wahba, these acquisitions mark a shift in Home Depot’s strategy. In the first quarter of the current fiscal year, sales at U.S. stores open at least a year rose just 0.2%, highlighting the need for change.

“Home Depot is widely viewed as one of the most successful retailers of the last 20 years, one that has deftly leveraged a hot housing market that led to more people renovating their homes,” Wahba writes. The company now anticipates that future growth will not come solely from its 2,000 big-box stores serving DIY customers, but increasingly from large orders placed by professionals for more complex projects, such as roof repairs.

GMS, based in Georgia, operates a network of about 320 distribution centers offering wallboard, ceilings, steel framing, and other construction materials. It also runs roughly 100 tool sales, rental, and service centers for residential and commercial contractors—“all things Home Depot covets,” according to Wahba.

Home Depot has long been thoughtful about its M&A strategy, Wahba notes, a discipline that has helped it outperform archrival Lowe’s in sales growth. You can read the complete article here.

Home Depot isn’t the only major U.S. company active in M&A this year. For example, tech giant HPE (Hewlett Packard Enterprise) announced on Wednesday the acquisition of Juniper Networks for approximately $14 billion. “This strategic transaction accelerates our transformation to a higher-margin, higher-growth portfolio and positions HPE for long-term, profitable revenue expansion,” HPE CFO Marie Myers stated in a LinkedIn post.

The Americas led global M&A with $908 billion in deal value in the first half of 2025 (61% of the total), up from $722 billion (55%) the previous year, according to PwC’s mid-year M&A update.

Meanwhile, Bain & Company reports that some companies are not allowing tariffs—or the changed economic world order they represent—to derail M&A activity.

With disciplined dealmaking and a focus on long-term growth, many companies are positioning themselves to thrive.

The next CFO Daily will be in your inbox on Monday. Enjoy the July Fourth holiday.

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

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Fortune 500 Power Moves

Jesus “Jay” Malave was appointed EVP and CFO of Boeing (No. 63), effective Aug. 15. Brian West, who served as Boeing CFO for the last four years, will become a senior advisor to Boeing President and CEO Kelly Ortberg. Malave was most recently CFO of Lockheed Martin and before that held the positions of SVP and CFO at L3Harris Technologies. He spent more than 20 years at United Technologies Corporation, including serving as vice president and CFO of Carrier Corporation when it was an operating unit of UTC, and vice president and CFO at UTC Aerospace Systems.

Every Friday morning, the weekly Fortune 500 Power Moves column tracks Fortune 500 company C-suite shifts—see the most recent edition

More notable moves this week

Brian Musfeldt was appointed CFO of Stem, Inc. (NYSE: STEM), an AI-driven clean energy software and services provider, effective July 17. Musfeldt succeeds Doran Hole, who is stepping down as CFO and EVP to pursue other interests. Musfeldt returns to Stem after serving as CFO of AlsoEnergy from 2017 to 2023, where he was instrumental in AlsoEnergy’s sale to Stem in 2022. He has nearly 30 years of experience, which also includes serving as CFO of ikeGPS, a platform technology company.

Andrea Courtois was appointed SVP and CFO of Kirkland’s, Inc., a specialty retailer of home décor and furnishings, effective July 21. Courtois will succeed Mike Madden, who plans to pursue other opportunities but will remain in an advisory position until Aug. 15. Courtois brings over 20 years of financial expertise. She most recently served as VP of financial planning and analysis at Francesca’s, following tenures in financial leadership roles at La Senza, Lane Bryant, and Lands’ End.

Brad Dahms was named CFO of Jade Biosciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: JBIO), a biotechnology company. Dahms was most recently CFO and chief business officer of IDRx, a clinical-stage oncology company. Before that, he served as CFO of Theseus Pharmaceuticals, where he guided the company’s initial public offering and sale to Concentra Biosciences. He began his career in health care investment banking, holding roles at Cantor Fitzgerald, RBC Capital Markets, and J.P. Morgan.

Pierre Revol was appointed CFO of FrontView REIT, Inc. (NYSE: FVR), effective July 21. Revol brings more than 20 years of experience. Most recently, he served as SVP of Capital Markets at CyrusOne. Before that, Revol served as SVP of corporate finance and investor relations at Spirit Realty Capital, Inc., formerly a publicly traded net-lease REIT.

Marc Grasso was appointed CFO of Kyverna Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: KYTX), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, effective June 30. Grasso brings more than 25 years of experience to the company. He succeeds Ryan Jones, who will move to a strategic advisor role. Most recently, Grasso served as CFO of Alector, Inc. Before that, he held the position of CFO and chief business officer of Kura Oncology.

Big Deal

Debt burden grows for rated U.S. corporations in Q1, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data. Total debt made up a larger share of shareholder equity in the first quarter compared to the previous quarter for both nonfinancial U.S. investment-grade and non-investment-grade companies.

The debt-to-equity ratio for the median nonfinancial investment-grade company increased by 131 basis points quarter over quarter, reaching 85.10%. Investment-grade companies are defined as those rated BBB- or higher by S&P Global Ratings. The rise in debt-to-equity was less pronounced for non-investment-grade companies, with the median ratio edging up to 117.6% from 117.5%.

Going deeper

Here are four Fortune weekend reads:

“The Mooch’s second act: Anthony Scaramucci’s improbable quest to transcend Trump and transform America” by Jeff John Roberts 

“Tesla’s sales recovery hinges on low-cost car running behind schedule—‘without a new model, things will only get worse’” by Christiaan Hetzner

“Barclays names Anne Marie Darling, who retired from Goldman Sachs in 2024, as co-COO” by Luisa Beltran

“Mastering AI at work: a practical guide to using ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and more” by Preston Fore

Overheard

“2025 so far has been an inflection year within enterprise generative AI as true adoption has begun by going from idea to scale.”

—Wedbush Securities tech analysts wrote in an industry note on Tuesday.



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Netflix cofounder started his career selling vacuums door-to-door before college—now, his $440 billion streaming giant is buying Warner Bros. and HBO

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December 5, 2025

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Reed Hastings may soon pull off one of the biggest deals in entertainment history. On Thursday, Netflix announced plans to acquire Warner Bros.—home to franchises like Dune, Harry Potter, and DC Universe, along with streamer HBO Max—in a total enterprise value deal of $83 billion. The move is set to cement Netflix as a media juggernaut that now rivals the legacy Hollywood giants it once disrupted.

It’s a remarkable trajectory for Netflix’s cofounder, Hastings—a self-made billionaire who found a love for business starting as a teenage door-to-door salesperson.

“I took a year off between high school and college and sold Rainbow vacuum cleaners door to door,” Hastings recalled to The New York Timesin 2006. “I started it as a summer job and found I liked it. As a sales pitch, I cleaned the carpet with the vacuum the customer had and then cleaned it with the Rainbow.”

That scrappy sales job was the first exposure to how to properly read customers—an instinct that would later shape Netflix’s user-obsessed culture. After graduating from Bowdoin College in 1983, Hastings considered joining the Marine Corps but ultimately joined the Peace Corps, teaching math in Eswatini for two years. When he returned to the U.S., he obtained a master’s in computer science from Stanford and began his career in tech.

The idea for Netflix reportedly came a few years later in the late 1990s. After misplacing a VHS copy of Apollo 13 and getting hit with a $40 late fee at Blockbuster, Hastings began exploring a mail-order rental service. While it’s an origin story that has since been debated, it marked the start of a company that would reshape global entertainment.

Hastings stepped back as CEO in 2023 and now serves as Netflix’s chairman of the board. He has amassed a net worth of about $5.6 billion. He’d be even richer if he didn’t keep offloading his shares in the company and making record-breaking charitable donations.

Netflix’s secret for success: finding the right people

Hastings has long said that one of the biggest drivers of Netflix’s success is its focus on hiring and keeping exceptional talent.

“If you’re going to win the championship, you got to have incredible talent in every position. And that’s how we think about it,” he told CNBC in 2020. “We encourage people to focus on who of your employees would you fight hard to keep if they were going to another company? And those are the ones we want to hold onto.”

To secure top performers, Hastings said he was more than willing to pay for above-market rates. 

“With a fixed amount of money for salaries and a project I needed to complete, I had a choice: Hire 10 to 25 average engineers, or hire one ‘rock-star’ and pay significantly more than what I’d pay the others, if necessary,” Hastings wrote. “Over the years, I’ve come to see that the best programmer doesn’t add 10 times the value. He or she adds more like a 100 times.”

That mindset also guided Netflix’s leadership transition. When Hastings stepped back from the C-suite, the company didn’t pick a single successor—it picked two. Greg Peters joined Ted Sarandos as co-CEO in 2023.

“It’s a high-performance technique,” Hastings said, speaking about the co-CEO model. “It’s not for most situations and most companies. But if you’ve got two people that work really well together and complement and extend and trust each other, then it’s worth doing.”

Netflix’s stock has soared more than 80,000% since its IPO in 2002, adjusting for stock splits.

Netflix brought unlimited PTO into the mainstream

Netflix’s flexible workplace culture has also played a key role in its success, with Hastings often known for prioritizing time off to recharge. 

“I take a lot of vacation, and I’m hoping that certainly sets an example,” the former CEO said in 2015. “It is helpful. You often do your best thinking when you’re off hiking in some mountain or something. You get a different perspective on things.”

The company was one of the first to introduce unlimited PTO, a policy that many firms have since adopted. About 57% of retail investors have said it could improve overall company performance, according to a survey by Bloomberg. Critics have argued that such policies can backfire when employees feel guilty taking time off, but Hastings has maintained that freedom is core to Netflix’s identity. 

“We are fundamentally dedicated to employee freedom because that makes us more flexible, and we’ve had to adapt so much back from DVD by mail to leading streaming today,” Hastings said. “If you give employees freedom you’ve got a better chance at that success.”

Netflix’s other cofounder, Marc Randolph, embraced a similar philosophy of valuing work-life balance.

“For over thirty years, I had a hard cut-off on Tuesdays. Rain or shine, I left at exactly 5 p.m. and spent the evening with my best friend. We would go to a movie, have dinner, or just go window-shopping downtown together,” Randolph wrote in a LinkedIn post.

“Those Tuesday nights kept me sane. And they put the rest of my work in perspective.”



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‘This species is recovering’: Jaguar spotted in Arizona, far from Central and South American core

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December 5, 2025

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The spots gave it away. Just like a human fingerprint, the rosette pattern on each jaguar is unique so researchers knew they had a new animal on their hands after reviewing images captured by a remote camera in southern Arizona.

The University of Arizona Wild Cat Research and Conservation Center says it’s the fifth big cat over the last 15 years to be spotted in the area after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. The animal was captured by the camera as it visited a watering hole in November, its distinctive spots setting it apart from previous sightings.

“We’re very excited. It signifies this edge population of jaguars continues to come here because they’re finding what they need,” Susan Malusa, director of the center’s jaguar and ocelot project, said during an interview Thursday.

The team is now working to collect scat samples to conduct genetic analysis and determine the sex and other details about the new jaguar, including what it likes to eat. The menu can include everything from skunks and javelina to small deer.

As an indicator species, Malusa said the continued presence of big cats in the region suggests a healthy landscape but that climate change and border barriers can threaten migratory corridors. She explained that warming temperatures and significant drought increase the urgency to ensure connectivity for jaguars with their historic range in Arizona.

More than 99% of the jaguar’s range is found in Central and South America, and the few male jaguars that have been spotted in the U.S. are believed to have dispersed from core populations in Mexico, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Officials have said that jaguar breeding in the U.S. has not been documented in more than 100 years.

Federal biologists have listed primary threats to the endangered species as habitat loss and fragmentation along with the animals being targeted for trophies and illegal trade.

The Fish and Wildlife Service issued a final rule in 2024, revising the habitat set aside for jaguars in response to a legal challenge. The area was reduced to about 1,000 square miles (2,590 square kilometers) in Arizona’s Pima, Santa Cruz and Cochise counties.

Recent detection data supports findings that a jaguar appears every few years, Malusa said, with movement often tied to the availability of water. When food and water are plentiful, there’s less movement.

In the case of Jaguar #5, she said it was remarkable that the cat kept returning to the area over a 10-day period. Otherwise, she described the animals as quite elusive.

“That’s the message — that this species is recovering,” Malusa said. “We want people to know that and that we still do have a chance to get it right and keep these corridors open.”



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MacKenzie Scott tries to close the higher ed DEI gap, giving away $155 million this week alone

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December 5, 2025

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MacKenzie Scott has arguably been the biggest name in philanthropy this year—and has nonstop been making major gifts to organizations focused on education, DEI, disaster recovery, and many other causes.

This week alone, several higher education institutions announced major gifts from the billionaire philanthropist and ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos—donations totaling well over $100 million. In true Scott fashion, many of these donations are the largest single donations these schools have ever received.

The donations announced this week include: 

  • $50 million to California State University-East Bay
  • $50 million to Lehman College (part of the City University of New York system)
  • $38 million to Texas A&M University-Kingsville
  • $17 million to Seminole State College

All four institutions are public, access-oriented colleges that enroll large shares of low‑income, first‑generation, and racially diverse students and function as minority‑serving institutions or similar engines of social mobility. They fit MacKenzie Scott’s broader pattern of directing large, unrestricted gifts to colleges that serve “chronically underserved” communities rather than already wealthy, highly selective universities.

Scott, who is worth about $40 billion and has donated over $20 billion in the past five years, has doubled down this year on causes that the Trump administration has cut deeply, such as education, DEI, and disaster recovery.

“As higher education, in general, works to find its way in an uncertain environment, this gift is a major source of encouragement that we are on the right path,” Lehman College President Fernando Delgado said in a statement. 

Scott also made one of the largest donations in HBCU Howard University’s 158-year history with an $80 million gift earlier this fall, and a $60 million donation to the Center for Disaster Philanthropy after Trump administration’s cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)—an organization Americans rely on for help during and after hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes, and floods.

“All sectors of society—public, private, and social—share responsibility for helping communities thrive after a disaster,” CDP president and CEO Patricia McIlreavy previously told Fortune. “Philanthropy plays a critical role in providing communities with resources to rebuild stronger, but it cannot—and should not—replace government and its essential responsibilities.”

Trust-based philanthropy

Scott accumulated the vast majority of her wealth from her 2019 divorce from Bezos, but is dedicated to giving away most of her fortune. She’s considered a unique philanthropist in today’s environment because her gifts are typically unrestricted, meaning the organizations can use the funding however they choose. 

“She practices trust-based philanthropy,” Anne Marie Dougherty, CEO of the Bob Woodruff Foundation previously told Fortune. Scott has donated $15 million to the veteran-focused nonprofit organization in 2022, and made a subsequent $20 million donation this fall.

Scott is also considered one of the most generous philanthropists, and credits acts of kindness for inspiring her to give back.

“It was the local dentist who offered me free dental work when he saw me securing a broken tooth with denture glue in college,” Scott wrote of her inspiration for philanthropy in an Oct. 15 essay published to her Yield Giving site. “It was the college roommate who found me crying, and acted on her urge to loan me a thousand dollars to keep me from having to drop out in my sophomore year.”



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