Boca Raton, Fla. — ODP Corp., the parent company of Office Depot, has rejected USR Parent Inc.’s off-market transaction offer to acquire the Boca Raton, Fla.-based retailer. USR, the parent company of office products retailer Staples and affiliate of Sycamore Partners, offered to buy ODP for $40 per share in an all-cash deal that would equate to roughly $2.1 billion. In a letter to Stefan Kaluzny, managing director of Sycamore Partners and a member of the board of directors at USR, ODP’s chairman of the board of directors Joseph Vassalluzzo said the company is not opposed to selling, but “what we do not plan to do, however, is engage in a transaction that, as history has shown, would likely result in a prolonged and expensive regulatory review process with no guarantee of success.”
In the letter, Vassalluzzo did not rule out the merger altogether, stating: “In addition, we are open to combining our retail and consumer-facing e-commerce operations with Staples under the right set of circumstances and on mutually acceptable terms.”
ODP owns Office Depot, OfficeMax and IT-services business CompuCom. ODP has been in the process of selling CompuCom since November 2020. According to The Wall Street Journal, USR plans to “pursue a public tender offer for ODP’s shares in March if the companies don’t reach agreement on a deal.”
ODP owns approximately 1,200 stores. There are 1,068 Staples stores in the United States.
SOURCE: www.REBusinessOnline.com