Staples To Buy Office Depot For $6.3 Billion

An anonymous reader writes: Today Staples announced plans to buy Office Depot in a deal worth $6.3 billion. This is a huge consolidation within the office supply industry. Office Depot and OfficeMax were the second- and third-biggest suppliers when they merged in 2013. Adding those to the enormity of Staples would effectively bring the U.S. under a single office supply chain. "The move is expected to draw scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission, though regulators have been increasingly willing to approve retail mergers in light of burgeoning e-commerce competition. ... This isn't the first time Staples has tried to buy Office Depot. In 1997, the FTC derailed Staples' acquisition of its rival as anticompetitive. By 2013, though, the agency's view had shifted. When the FTC allowed Office Depot to buy OfficeMax, it said the advent of online retailing ensured competition in the market for office supplies. Consumers today also rely more heavily on big-box chains such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for office products, the commission said."

Comments

Next RadioShack

[Luthair]

Is anyone else surprised Staples isn't bankrupt? No one ever goes there and the only time I hear about Staples is when a deal site mentions yet another category is on clearance.

Just a theory

[Andrio]

I think if someone were to create a simulation model of a truly free market with no regulation, and seed it with hundreds (thousands) of little businesses to start with, given enough time, you'll end up single monopoly that controls every industry, service, and product.