Staples is offering to buy Office Depot for $ 2.1 billion

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The bid price of $ 40 per share for Office Depot’s parent company, ODP Corp., is a premium of approximately 60% compared to its average closing price of the last 90 trading days. The cash transaction, according to Staples, is a “compelling value proposition” and is “superior to the intrinsic, independent value” of Office Depot.

Office deposit (ODP) shares increased by about 10% in premarket trading. Staples went private in 2017, selling to Sycamore Partners, a company focused on keeping troubled traders afloat.

Staples said it was “ready to take all necessary steps” to get the merger approved by the Federal Trade Commission, which said in 2015 that the combination would give the combined companies too much of the office supplier’s retail market. and would violate antitrust law.

To avoid antitrust control, Staples proposed selling its IT management company CompuCom or its business-to-business unit. This could lead to an increase in the price proposed by Staples, he said. The regulatory process could take about six months, the company said, and Staples urges the ODP board to “instruct management to cooperate with regulators as soon as possible.”

Office Depot did not immediately return CNN Business’s request for comment. Monday’s proposal is about a third of the purchase price from the original 2015 purchase agreement of $ 6.3 billion.
This marks the third time in about 25 years that companies have tried to merge, including once in 1997. Staples and Office Depot faced stiff competition from retail stores that are not traditional office suppliers such as Amazon (AMZN) and Walmart (WMT).

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