Pool Corporation (POOL): History, Ownership, Mission, How It Works & Makes Money

When you think about the world's largest wholesale distributor of pool supplies, do you defintely picture a company with a current market capitalization hovering near $8.94 billion as of November 2025? Pool Corporation (POOL) is exactly that, a dominant force whose trailing twelve-month (TTM) revenue sits at an impressive $5.29 Billion USD, built on the backbone of essential maintenance products and a vast network of over 450 sales centers globally. How does a business that sells chemicals, equipment, and parts manage to report a net sales figure of $1.5 billion in just the third quarter of 2025, even in a constrained market? Stick with us to understand the history, mission, and precise mechanics that make Pool Corporation's business model a masterclass in resilient distribution.

Pool Corporation (POOL) History

You need a clear, precise history of Pool Corporation, the world's largest wholesale distributor of pool and outdoor living products, to ground your strategic analysis. The company's journey began with a simple regional focus in the 1980s and evolved through a series of smart acquisitions and a critical private equity partnership, culminating in its current position as a global giant with a market capitalization around $8.94 billion as of late 2025.

Pool Corporation's Founding Timeline

Year established

The company was established in 1980, initially operating as South Central Pool Supply.

Original location

It was founded in Metairie, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans.

Founding team members

The core founder was Frank J. St. Romain, who had worked as a warehouse manager in the pool distribution industry. He was joined by his partner, Richard Smith, in 1981 to formally start the venture.

Initial capital/funding

Specific initial capital details are not public, but the company's start was described as growing from the founder's entrepreneurial dreams and taking a 'leap of faith.' The first major external funding came years later in 1993 from a private equity firm.

Pool Corporation's Evolution Milestones

Pool Corporation's Transformative Moments

The biggest shifts for Pool Corporation didn't just come from organic growth, but from two critical, structural decisions: the private equity deal and the disciplined expansion strategy that followed.

• The 1993 Private Equity Infusion: Joining forces with Code Hennessy & Simmons was the pivot. It transformed a successful regional distributor, South Central Pool Supply, into a platform for national consolidation. This move set the stage for the 1995 IPO, which was the real financial launchpad.
• The IPO and Capital Strategy: Going public in 1995 gave the company the currency-stock and debt capacity-to execute a 'roll-up' strategy, acquiring smaller distributors like Benson Pump Company. By 1999, the company spent $25.5 million on acquisitions, rapidly building a cohesive distribution network that now operates over 450 sales centers globally.
• The COVID-19 Demand Shock: The pandemic period was a massive, if temporary, accelerant. Lockdowns drove a surge in residential pool construction and renovation, significantly boosting sales. This cemented the company's market dominance, though sales have since slowed as the market normalizes.

Here's the quick math on the current environment: Pool Corporation has set its full-year 2025 earnings per share (EPS) guidance between $10.70 and $11.20, reflecting a more constrained market compared to the pandemic peak. You can defintely see the company's long-term value creation by Exploring Pool Corporation (POOL) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why?

What this estimate hides is the resilience of the maintenance and minor repair segment, which generated 62% of the company's revenue in 2023, providing a stable base even as new pool construction slows down. Finance: monitor Q4 2025 revenue against the $1.1 billion and $1.8 billion reported in Q1 and Q2 2025, respectively, to gauge the full-year trajectory.

Pool Corporation (POOL) Ownership Structure

Pool Corporation's ownership structure is highly concentrated among institutional investors, which is typical for a mature S&P 500 company. As of November 2025, the vast majority of the company is held by major funds and asset managers, meaning strategic decisions are heavily influenced by the perspectives of large financial institutions like Vanguard Group Inc. and BlackRock Inc.

This high institutional ownership, hovering around 91.41%, suggests a stable, long-term investor base, but it also means that a few large block trades can defintely impact the stock price. The company's focus on its Mission Statement, Vision, & Core Values of Pool Corporation (POOL) is ultimately governed by these major stakeholders.

Pool Corporation's Current Status

Pool Corporation, doing business as POOLCORP, is a publicly traded company on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol POOL. It operates as a Delaware C Corporation and is a component of the S&P 500 index. This public status subjects it to strict Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reporting requirements, ensuring a high degree of transparency for investors.

The company's financial health is strong, with its FY 2025 earnings per share (EPS) guidance set between $10.70 and $11.20 per diluted share. For context, Q3 2025 net sales were approximately $1.5 billion, following Q2 2025 net sales of $1.8 billion, showing the scale of their operations in the wholesale distribution of pool and outdoor living products.

Pool Corporation's Ownership Breakdown

The ownership structure is dominated by institutional money, a clear signal that professional fund managers view Pool Corporation as a core holding. Insider ownership, while smaller, is still significant and aligns management's interests with shareholders.

Here's the quick math: Institutional control is overwhelming. Vanguard Group Inc. alone holds about 10.54% of the company's shares, valued at roughly $943.58 million, while BlackRock Inc. holds around 7.99%, valued at approximately $715.10 million, based on a recent share price near $239.98.

Pool Corporation's Leadership

The management team is a blend of long-tenured company veterans and experienced external leaders, steering the world's largest wholesale distributor of swimming pool supplies. This stability in leadership is crucial for executing long-term strategy, especially in a cyclical industry like pool construction and maintenance.

• Peter D. Arvan: President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), who has been in his role since 2019, drives the overall corporate strategy.
• Melanie M. Hart: Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), and Treasurer, overseeing the company's financial operations and capital allocation.
• Jennifer M. Neil: Senior Vice President, Secretary, and Chief Legal Officer, managing legal and governance affairs.
• Kenneth G. St. Romain: Senior Vice President, a long-time company veteran who provides deep operational knowledge.
• Todd R. Marshall: Vice President and Chief Information Officer (CIO), focusing on technology and digital platform enhancements.

The leadership team's experience, often spanning decades at Pool Corporation, helps them navigate the seasonal and economic pressures inherent in the pool industry, ensuring the company maintains its market position across its roughly 455 sales centers globally.

Pool Corporation (POOL) Mission and Values

Pool Corporation's mission is a clear, four-part mandate focused on value creation for all stakeholders-customers, suppliers, shareholders, and employees-which drives its global strategy beyond simple product distribution. This commitment to a balanced ecosystem is what allows the company to maintain its leadership in the outdoor living market.

If you want to understand the company's financial mechanics, you can read Breaking Down Pool Corporation (POOL) Financial Health: Key Insights for Investors, but its mission is the defintely the cultural foundation.

Pool Corporation's Core Purpose

The company's core purpose centers on being the indispensable link in the outdoor living supply chain, moving far beyond just shipping products. It's about enhancing the business growth potential of its customers and delivering a superior return for investors, which is a classic distribution model focus, but with an empathetic lens on employee opportunity.

Here's the quick math on the shareholder side: the company has set its full-year 2025 Diluted Earnings Per Share (EPS) guidance in the range of $11.10 to $11.60, demonstrating its commitment to that exceptional return even in a challenging market.

Official mission statement

Pool Corporation's mission statement is a compact, stakeholder-centric declaration that maps its operational goals directly to four key groups.

• Provide exceptional value to our customers and suppliers.
• Create exceptional return for our shareholders.
• Provide exceptional opportunities for our employees.

This isn't just corporate filler; it's a measurable contract. For customers, this translates to distributing over 200,000 products from more than 2,200 vendors to roughly 125,000 wholesale customers globally.

Vision statement

The vision statement is simple: be the best worldwide distributor of outdoor lifestyle products. It's a clear focus on market leadership and product breadth, tying the core swimming pool business to the broader, more resilient outdoor home life trend.

• Be the best worldwide distributor of outdoor lifestyle products.
• Include all products relating to swimming pools, irrigation, and other products that enhance the quality of outdoor home life.

This vision is supported by four key operating priorities the CEO, Peter D. Arvan, has highlighted: safety, growth, profitability, and striving to be an Employer of Choice. The focus on safety is real-they strive for a Goal Zero: zero employee injuries and zero preventable vehicle accidents.

Pool Corporation slogan/tagline

The company's public-facing identity ties its products directly to the consumer experience, which is a smart move for a B2B distributor.

• Where Outdoor Living Comes to Life®.

This tagline also connects to their social impact. Through the SWiMPACT! program, Pool Corporation has provided free swim lessons to over 42,000 children, linking their business to community well-being and water safety. That's a tangible example of their mission in action, not just a marketing phrase.

Pool Corporation (POOL) How It Works

Pool Corporation operates as the world's largest wholesale distributor of swimming pool, spa, and outdoor living products, creating value by efficiently connecting a fragmented base of over 125,000 professional pool customers with a massive, diverse product supply. The business model is anchored by non-discretionary maintenance sales, which account for roughly 62% of its total revenue, providing stable cash flow even when new construction slows.

Pool Corporation's Product/Service Portfolio

Pool Corporation's Operational Framework

The company's operational success comes from its massive scale and disciplined supply chain management, which is defintely a competitive advantage. It functions as a critical intermediary, simplifying logistics for both manufacturers and pool professionals.

• Massive Distribution Network: Pool Corporation operates a network of 460 sales centers across North America, Europe, and Australia as of Q3 2025. This local presence allows for rapid, convenient product pickup and delivery to service professionals.
• Inventory and Logistics: It stocks over 200,000 products, using its scale to secure favorable purchasing terms from major manufacturers like Pentair and Hayward. Efficient inventory management is crucial to mitigating seasonal demand swings.
• Digital Integration: The POOL360 platform streamlines the ordering process, driving efficiency for its 125,000 customers and reducing the company's selling and administrative expenses (SG&A) as a percentage of revenue.
• Value-Added Services: Beyond product distribution, the company offers training, marketing programs, and financing to its wholesale customer base, deepening those relationships and increasing switching costs.

Here's the quick math: With net sales of $4.3 billion for the first nine months of 2025, the distribution engine is running at a huge scale, even with a slight dip in the discretionary new construction segment. You can read more about their long-term focus here: Mission Statement, Vision, & Core Values of Pool Corporation (POOL).

Pool Corporation's Strategic Advantages

Pool Corporation maintains a strong economic moat (competitive advantage) by dominating a fragmented industry, which translates directly into superior financial performance. For instance, the company's Q3 2025 diluted earnings per share (EPS) was $3.40.

• Market Leadership and Scale: The company holds nearly 40% of the U.S. pool distribution market, which is a near-monopoly in a highly fragmented space. This scale grants pricing power and superior logistics efficiency.
• Recurring Revenue Resilience: The high percentage of maintenance-related sales (62%) acts as a defensive revenue shield, stabilizing cash flow during economic downturns when discretionary spending on new pools is soft.
• Digital Ecosystem Lock-in: The proprietary POOL360 platform creates high barriers to entry, making it difficult for a pool professional to switch to a competitor after integrating the platform into their daily operations.
• Margin Enhancement: Continued growth in private-label products and strategic pricing initiatives helped expand the gross margin to 29.6% in Q3 2025.

What this estimate hides is the seasonality; the company earns the vast majority of its profit in the second and third quarters, so you must look at the full-year guidance, which is currently set between $10.81 and $11.31 per diluted share for 2025.

Pool Corporation (POOL) How It Makes Money

Pool Corporation makes money primarily by being the world's largest wholesale distributor of swimming pool supplies, equipment, and related outdoor living products to a network of professional pool builders, service technicians, and retailers. Their financial engine is heavily weighted toward non-discretionary, recurring maintenance products for the massive installed base of pools, which provides a resilient revenue stream.

Pool Corporation's Revenue Breakdown

As of the third quarter of 2025, Pool Corporation's revenue streams reflect the ongoing split between essential maintenance and more cyclical, discretionary spending. The core of the business remains the high-margin, recurring sales of chemicals and replacement parts.

Business Economics

The company's business model is defintely unique because it is built around a massive, non-discretionary installed base of over 13 million residential pools in the U.S. alone. This means most of their sales-the approximately 60% from maintenance and repair products-are recurring, regardless of the housing market or new construction starts.

The pricing strategy has been dynamic in 2025. We saw mid-season price increases in Q3, which, coupled with pricing optimization initiatives, helped expand the gross margin to 29.6% for the quarter. This pricing power often stems from their scale and strategic management of the supply chain, allowing them to pass on vendor cost increases, including those related to tariffs, to the professional customer base.

• High-Interest Rate Impact: Elevated interest rates continue to pressure the discretionary side of the business-new pool construction and major renovations-which is why the full-year 2025 sales outlook is generally flat.
• Digital Advantage: The POOL360 digital platform is a key economic lever, increasing sales efficiency and driving growth in private-label chemical products, which typically carry higher margins.
• Show Your Thinking Briefly: The resilience of the maintenance segment is what stabilizes the company when new construction permits are flat or down.

Pool Corporation's Financial Performance

Pool Corporation is navigating a challenging macro environment with stable margins and a focus on cost control, which is the mark of a seasoned distributor. For the full 2025 fiscal year, the company confirmed its diluted earnings per share (EPS) guidance to be in the range of $10.81 to $11.31. This is a slight dip from the prior year, but it reflects management's confidence in the underlying business strength.

Total net sales for the full year 2025 are projected to be relatively flat compared to the 2024 net sales of $5.3 billion, which is a solid result given the headwinds in discretionary spending. The company's operating margin remains robust, with the second quarter of 2025 reaching 15.3%, driven by strong operational discipline. This is a high-quality distributor. For a deeper dive into the institutional view, you can check out Exploring Pool Corporation (POOL) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why?

• Gross Margin Stability: Full-year gross margin is anticipated to be in line with the prior year's 29.7%, demonstrating effective cost and pricing management.
• Inventory Management: Inventory at the end of Q3 2025 stood at $1.2 billion, up 4% from the prior year, reflecting strategic purchases and inflation.
• Capital Allocation: The company returned capital to shareholders, funding open market share repurchases of $159.1 million in the first nine months of 2025.

Pool Corporation (POOL) Market Position & Future Outlook

Pool Corporation's (POOL) market position is one of entrenched dominance in the wholesale distribution of pool and outdoor living products, a critical, non-discretionary part of the industry's aftermarket. While the $5.42 billion consensus sales estimate for the 2025 fiscal year suggests a 'flattish' growth environment, the company is focused on capturing market share through digital and network expansion, not relying on a surge in new pool construction. [cite: 6, 9, 12, primary search]

The company is a trend-aware realist, anticipating new pool construction to remain relatively flat at around 60,000 units in 2025, so their strategy is built on the recurring, high-margin maintenance segment. [cite: 8, 12, primary search] This focus on the existing pool base, which drives about 60% of their business, provides a defintely resilient revenue floor. [cite: 16, primary search]

Competitive Landscape

In the pool and spa supply chain, Pool Corporation sits at the top as the largest wholesale distributor. Its competition is fragmented, but the most direct rivalry comes from the largest specialty retailer and the major equipment manufacturers whose products Pool Corporation also distributes.

Opportunities & Challenges

The company's future performance hinges on converting macroeconomic risks into tactical market share gains, especially since their full-year 2025 GAAP diluted EPS guidance is a cautious $10.81 to $11.31 per share. [cite: 9, primary search]

Industry Position

Pool Corporation is the undisputed distribution king, operating approximately 455 sales centers across North America, Europe, and Australia, a network scale no competitor can match. [cite: 15, 18, primary search] This geographic and logistical advantage allows them to distribute over 200,000 products efficiently to roughly 125,000 wholesale customers. [cite: 15, 18, primary search] The core of their strategy is digital: sales through their B2B e-commerce platform, POOL360, grew from 12% to 16% of total sales between Q3 2023 and Q3 2025, which increases customer stickiness and operational efficiency. [cite: 9, primary search] Also, their focus on the non-discretionary maintenance segment-chemicals, parts, and repair-provides a substantial buffer against economic downturns, a key factor in a period of cautious discretionary spending. If you want a deeper dive into how the company manages its balance sheet through these cycles, check out Breaking Down Pool Corporation (POOL) Financial Health: Key Insights for Investors.

• Own the wholesale distribution channel with an estimated 70% distribution-led market share. [cite: 14, primary search]
• Prioritize maintenance-related sales, which are stable even as new pool construction is flat. [cite: 8, 12, primary search]
• Use the massive scale of 460 sales centers to drive cost savings and expand private-label offerings. [cite: 9, 14, primary search]