When Did Home Depot Revenue Return to 2007 Levels?
David Rosenthal says Home Depot revenue started falling in 2007, bottomed in 2010, and did not get back to 2007 levels until 2014.
The housing bubble burst in 2006. The great financial crisis came in 2008, after a leadership transition in January 2007. Spending on home improvement supplies fell off a cliff from 2006 into 2007, and the halt in building new homes for unqualified buyers took 18 to 24 months to work through the financial system. Over a seven-year span, net income followed the same path, with Home Depot below its previous high watermark on revenue and profits.
The board had no bench it knew well enough to run the company, and most other executives were Nardelli people, so removing Bob Nardelli looked like replacing him with more people like Bob Nardelli. His tactics did not fit Home Depot's culture or mission, but a housing boom had been at the company's back for decades, and growth was hard once that boom ended.