![]() A year ago this month it similarly paid $1 billion for CompuCom Systems, which provides managed IT services to small-, medium- and enterprise-size businesses, including seven of the top 10 retailers in North America, the company said. Meanwhile, former fiancée Office Depot was on a bit of buying tear itself. The purchase price was just shy of $1 billion in cash, and put Staples in the novel position of selling to other office-supply retailers. This month Sycamore acquired another asset for Staples: Essendant, a $5 billion distributor of janitorial and breakroom supplies, office furniture, and tech and office-supply products. “We will continue to look for strategic opportunities like this one where we feel we can help create better options for businesses in the marketplace.”ĭouglas wasn’t kidding. “The combination of HiTouch’s sales organization and the strength of Staples will allow us to give customers an even higher level of service,” CEO Douglas said. The 15-year-old, Tennessee-based supplier said it provides “virtually everything a business needs to operate,” including contract furniture and total workspace environments, and a full suite of services that range from office design to space and move planning. To help bolster Staples’ B-to-B bastion, Sycamore acquired HiTouch Business Services in June for an undisclosed sum. ![]() ![]() Since his appointment, Staples, under the new tagline “It’s Pro Time,” has doubled down on “work solutions” that provide products, services and expertise for facilities, breakrooms, furniture, technology, promotional products, and print and marketing services. Sandy Douglas previously served as president of Coca-Cola North America, and his 30-year tenure at Coke and prior experience at Procter & Gamble made him “an ideal leader … at this important time” said executive chairman John Lederer, as Staples’ B-to-B business “has a significant opportunity to accelerate long-term growth.” The first thing Sycamore did was separate Staples’ retail business from its more lucrative commercial division, and five months later installed a new CEO. The one big difference: Office Depot remains a public company.Ī year after the marriage was quashed, Staples was taken private in a $7 billion leveraged buyout by private equity firm Sycamore Partners, which also owns the Nine West, Talbots, Belk and Dollar Express retail chains. So where do they stand now? Following parallel paths, the companies each brought in new management teams, jettisoned their overseas operations, de-emphasized their retail business, and began building up their B-to-B offerings by adding more services to their product assortments, and by buying up competitors. See also: Can Brick-And-Mortar Keep Up With Automated Retail? district court judge once again granted the FTC an injunction to block Staples’ proposed $6.3 billion acquisition of Office Depot, and, after determining it was fruitless to appeal the decision, it was back to the drawing board for the two defeated chains. Regardless, in a replay of the 1997 scenario, a U.S. The irony, they said, was that the FTC cited that same competition as the reason for approving the Office Depot/OfficeMax merger just two years prior. “It also ignores the vigorous existing and expanding competition Staples and Office Depot face from numerous strong competitors, including … Internet resellers, big-box chains and club stores.” “The FTC underestimates the disruptive effect of new competitors in the digital economy,” the chains’ chairmen/CEOs wrote in an open letter to customers five months before their second acquisition attempt was dashed. The advent of Amazon and the aggressive expansion of the office-supply category at Walmart, Sam’s Club and Costco have only continued to wound the chains’ retail businesses, despite Office Depot’s 2013 acquisition of No. ![]() The landscape had only worsened for the chains since 1997, when a federal district court judge blocked the merger, arguing that it would violate antitrust laws by “substantially reducing competition” in the office-supply superstore space. More than two years after federal regulators succeeded in blocking the merger of Staples and Office Depot, their management teams’ unheeded warnings of a retail retrenchment in the office-supply specialty store channel have come to pass.įor the second time in 19 years, the two national chains argued that the best hope to salvage the big-box office-supply business amid mounting competition was to allow them to come together, this time into a single $39 billion entity.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |