OfficeMax, Office Depot Are Merging

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that OfficeMax Inc. OMX and Office Depot ODP are in "advanced talks to merge," as the office supply retailers try to fight off competition from Staples SPLS and Amazon.com 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 the Boca Raton, Florida-based Office Depot total about $11.5 billion, which employs about 39,000 people. 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.