Staples in Talks to Sell its Stores to Office Depot
A merger between Staples and Office Depot may happen after all, at least according to a report from the New York Post. According to the report, Staples has been in talks to spin off its 1,500 retail stores to Office Depot. Neither Staples nor Office Depot commented on the story.
Total Retail's Take: The latest Staples/Office Depot news comes just weeks after Staples was acquired by private-equity firm Sycamore Partners for $6.9 billion. That deal came more than a year after a proposed merger-acquisition between Office Depot and Staples was blocked by a federal court judge after it was contested by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. If this deal does take place, it would create the nation’s only big-box office-supplies chain in Office Depot, with thousands of locations coast to coast. According to The Post report, Sycamore has signaled a willingness to offload the stores because they're struggling as shoppers increasingly shift their buying to online rivals led by Amazon.com, which last week said its office-supplies business has served 1 million business customers since its launch two years ago, and that it has grown 150 percent over the past year.
