Going paperless

11 Jan 2021 By Lauren Silva Laughlin Follow @TheRealLSL

Staples wants to buy Office Depot for $2.1 bln, a third of the price offered in 2016. America’s trustbusters blocked two previous merger attempts. Yet the retailers’ real competition wasn’t each other, but rivals like Amazon. Regulators need to define markets better.

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Staples said on Jan. 11 it had offered to buy Office Depot parent ODP for $2.1 billion in cash some five years after the two office-supplies retailers ditched a deal. The two U.S. groups abandoned their 2016 merger attempt after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint to block it, saying a combination of the two would reduce nationwide competition.

The FTC also rejected an effort by Staples to buy Office Depot in 1997.

Privately-held Staples, officially known as USR Parent, offered $40 a share for ODP, which it said was a 61% premium to ODP's 90-day average trading price. ODP's shares rose 17% to trade above $43 each at 3 p.m. ET on Jan. 11.

Staples was taken private by private equity firm Sycamore Partners in 2017.

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