The Home Depot is acquiring a building materials supplier with nearly 800 locations in an $18.25 billion deal that the home improvement retailer says will bolster sales to professional contractors and construction firms, a market it’s been pursuing as Americans have cut back on do-it-yourself projects.

Atlanta-based Home Depot on Thursday said it had an agreement to purchase SRS Distribution, a seller of goods related to roofing, landscaping and pools to home renovators and remodelers, builders, property investors, electricians, painters and roofers. Home Depot is buying SRS for a total enterprise value, including net debt, of about $18.25 billion, a record amount for the retailer, that’s expected to close by the end of fiscal 2024.

With the purchase of McKinney, Texas-based SRS, Home Depot is looking to grab a much bigger share of sales from contractors and construction firms, a strategy it’s been pursuing for several years now as revenue from home owners and DIY customers has slipped. Americans who took on improving their homes during the pandemic were done with that work, and consumers have had less money to spend on discretionary items as inflation and interest rates rose.

Home Depot, the world’s largest home improvement specialty retailer, has already made several acquisitions and moves to drive sales from professional customers. In December 2020 it completed an $8 billion purchase of Atlanta-based HD Supply Holdings, a national distributor of maintenance, repair and operations products for the multifamily and hospitality markets. Last August, Home Depot acquired Redi Carpet, a multifamily flooring provider based in Stafford, Texas.

Earlier this month, Home Depot said it was opening four new distribution centers in the Detroit, Los Angeles, San Antonio and Toronto markets this year to supply goods for its professional customers.

With its latest acquisition, Home Deport will be adding SRS’s 760-plus “branches,” industrial locations such as warehouses, running under a variety of local brands across 47 states to its operations. SRS occupies 11 million square feet of real estate, according to CoStar data. Home Depot will also be gaining SRS’s fleet of more than 4,000 trucks.

The SRS locations range in size from 6,000 to 118,000 square feet, according to CoStar.

“SRS’s branch network, coupled with The Home Depot’s 2,000-plus U.S. stores and distribution centers, comprehensive product offering, and extensive pro brands, provides the residential pro customer with more fulfillment and service options than ever before,” Home Depot Chairman and CEO Ted Decker said in a statement.

On a conference call, Decker said the SRS purchase will increase what he described as Home Depot’s total addressable market to roughly $1 trillion, an increase of about $50 billion.

“Roughly half of our current sales are to the pro customer, and we know that virtually all pros shop at the Home Depot today for some of their needs,” Decker said on a conference call. “Over the last several years, we have been building out capabilities required to gain a greater share of wallet with the larger pros more-complex purchase occasion … The ecosystem that we are building is focused on the general contractor who shops cross-category and benefits from consolidating product purchases.”

Home Depot’s overall sales in fiscal 2023 dipped 3%, to $152.7 billion, compared with the prior year. Comparable sales were down 3.2%.

Dan Tinker, SRS’s president and CEO, and his senior management team are to continue to lead the company, with SRS operating as an independent business unit within Home Depot, focused on accelerating growth in the pro market. Tinker will report to Decker.

“The proposed acquisition will clear a pathway for accelerated growth with the residential and commercial professional customer by expanding The Home Depot’s Pro capabilities, combining online, retail and wholesale,” SRS said in a statement.

SRS, which posted $10 billion in revenue in 2023, has two private equity investors, Boston-based Berkshire Partners and Los Angeles-based Leonard Green & Partners.

Home Depot operates 2,335 stores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, 10 Canadian provinces and Mexico.

J.P. Morgan Securities served as exclusive financial adviser and Weil, Gotshal & Manges served as legal counsel to Home Depot in connection with the transaction. Jefferies is acting as lead financial adviser, and Goldman Sachs is also acting as a financial adviser, to SRS.