Staples-Office Depot Merger Collapses After Block by Judge

[LiberalElite]

Source: Bloomberg.com

Staples Inc. and Office Depot Inc. abandoned their merger after a federal judge sided with U.S. antitrust officials who challenged the combination of the two largest office suppliers, saying it would create an unrivaled giant.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington blocked the $6.3 billion deal late Tuesday, a victory for the Federal Trade Commission, which argued that uniting the national suppliers of pens and printer paper would harm buyers.

The FTC met its “burden of showing that there is a reasonable probability that the proposed merger will substantially impair competition in the sale and distribution of consumable office supplies to large business-to-business customers,” Sullivan wrote in a three-page order.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-10/staples-office-depot-merger-blocked-as-anticompetitive

[cstanleytech]

1. I'm usually not a fan of big companies merging but I am confused over this block

given the competition from Walmart and Amazon.

[PSPS]

3. The brick/mortar office supply store industry was already down to only three

Office Depot + Office Max + Staples.

Now that Office Depot and Office Max have merged, that leaves only two. Allowing this to dwindle to one would have been horrible.

[cstanleytech]

5. I completely forgot about Office Max but still like I said with Walmart and online retailers

such as Amazon in the game are stores that are purely built around supplying offices relevant?

[D Gary Grady]

15. Office supple stores still have some advantages

I don't think Walmart is that much of a competitor against Office Depot and Staples. For one thing, there's a lot that office supply stores stock that Walmart does not, such as a large variety of binders, papers, labels, furniture, a much larger range of toner and ink, and so on. Also, office supply stores typically offer free delivery to businesses in their areas, and as far as I know, Walmart does not.

Internet retailers such as Amazon, B&H, NewEgg, et al are another matter. They have a wider selection than any office supply store, and they routinely beat Office Depot and Staples on price as well, at least for many items. But for things that are heavy and expensive to ship, such as reams of paper, I suspect the price advantage is less. (Even if shipping is supposedly "free," the money has to come from somewhere.) If companies are getting paper from Office Depot, they might as well get their other supplies there as well unless there's a major price difference.

[cstanleytech]

16. Hmm you have a point about the ink, I didnt think about that.

Not sure about the shipping costs being a big hurdle though atleast not for Amazon and Newegg as I have often found it cheaper to order from them than it is to buy local, heck I picked up a nice little budget laptop (my brother gave me the money as a gift) and was able to get a far better price from Newegg with 2 day delivery than I could have gotten if I had gone into Walmart or Bestbuy to purchase it.

[TexasBushwhacker]

2. I'm glad

Although I already switched to a local office supply company.

[silvershadow]

4. Good. nt

[houston16revival]

6. Was Best Buy mentioned?

Staples is supposed to be the second largest online etailer after Amazon

and Computers and Tech is a major portion of Staples business

All the suit examined from what i heard was Amazon and office supplies

Tech was not mentioned, nor was Best Buy, nor Walmart's tech offerings

Nor Staples experiments with renting offices inside their stores

I'm surprised, and think this industry landscape will be significantly different
in a couple of years as Amazon grows

[LiberalFighter]

7. So glad. I don't like Staples.

[BlueSpot]

8. I guess it wasn't so easy after all

[AllyCat]

12. LOL!

[vkkv]

9. Judge Sullivan HIT THE EASY BUTTON! Thank you JUDGE!!!!!!! NT

[mitty14u2]

10. M&A activity tops $5 trillion in record 2015

Offers from Pfizer, Anheuser-Busch InBev and Royal Dutch Shell top list

Merger and acquisition announcements topped $5 trillion for the first time in 2015 with just days remaining, according to Dealogic.

The announced volume surpasses a record set in 2007, when $4.6 trillion in deals were announced. Adjusted for inflation, however, that $4.6 trillion becomes $5.27 trillion in today’s dollars, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Also see: 10 most remarkable corporate deals of 2015

About half of the record deal-making activity, roughly $2.5 trillion, targeted U.S.-based companies, the analytics provider said. Acquisitions of health-care and tech companies led the pack with $723.7 billion and $713.1 billion in announced deals, Dealogic said.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ma-activity-tops-5-trillion-in-record-2015-2015-12-28

Monopoly is the end game for Greed and Power Brokers.

[AllyCat]

11. Yay! Would have left us with no competition

[Duckfan]

13. Thank you Your Honor

Good Call.

[SusanCalvin]

14. Good! nt

[houston16revival]

17. You mean two corporations with the rights of people

can't marry whom they want to marry?