Courtesy of Benzinga.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that OfficeMax Inc. (NYSE: OMX) and Office Depot (NYSE: ODP) are in “advanced talks to merge,” as the office supply retailers try to fight off competition from Staples (NASDAQ: SPLS) and Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN).
The deal, expected to be stock-for-stock, could come as early this week, said people familiar with the matter.
If it goes through, the merger would combine two casualties of the digital age that still maintain a strong retail presence, with 1,675 stores and 900 outlets for Office Depot and OfficeMax, respectively.
Annual sales for Office Depot, based on Boca Raton, Florida, total about $11.5 billion, which employs about 39,000 people. Naperville, Illinois-based OfficeMax has about 29,000 employees and reported roughly $7 billion in annual sales.
The market value of Office Depot is $1.3 billion, while it’s estimated that Office Max’s is approximately $933 million.
