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Staples inks deal to buy Office Depot for $6.3 billion

“There are plenty of places to buy a dozen pens. Need 12,000, though, and the options dwindle,” Drew Fitzgerald and Liz Hoffman report for The Wall Street Journal. “That distinction between the retail market for everyday office and school supplies and the big business of supplying corporate and government clients under contract could loom large as regulators weigh Staples Inc.’s $6.3 billion deal to buy rival Office Depot Inc.”

“The merger, unveiled Wednesday, would take the U.S. down to one chain of office-supply superstores from three in just a couple of years. The Federal Trade Commission waved through Office Depot’s acquisition of OfficeMax in 2013. The current deal may get a closer look,” Fitzgerald and Hoffman report. “Leo Meehan, chief executive of closely held W.B. Mason Co., a regional office-supplies seller, said it was too soon to tell whether the merger would hurt his business. W.B. Mason does about $1.5 billion in business a year, about a third of which comes from large buyers, including government clients, Mr. Meehan said. ‘Now we’re just going to have this one monstrous competitor,’ he said. But ‘every time there’s been a merger, each one has over time brought opportunity for us. One way or another, we’ll be out there trying.'”

MacDailyNews Take: Now, there’s a guy with a proper attitude!

“Investors appeared to be betting the deal will get real scrutiny from regulators. Office Depot shares closed up 2.2% at $9.49, well below the deal’s value of $10.91 a share at Staples’ closing price Wednesday. Staples’ shares fell 12% to $16.73,” Fitzgerald and Hoffman report. “Both are already among the 10 biggest online retailers, with Staples coming in No. 3 behind Amazon.com and Apple Inc., and Office Depot at No. 9, according to Internet Retailer, a trade publication.”

Read more in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]

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