Stapled together

18 years after the first attempt at a merger, US office supply giants, Staples and Office Depot, have finally declared their merger official. Staples agreed to buy Office Depot in a cash-and-stock deal for over $6 billion. The deal is supposedly going to boost the merged entity’s online revenues to $14.5 billion. The new company will have over 4,244 stores, but around 1/4^th of the stores will have to be closed just to keep the operation profitable. Office Depot is still losing a lot of money on all the stores it got when it acquired OfficeMax. Whether this marriage of convenience works out in their favour is to be seen.