Corporate Express Accepts Staples Offer

123jump.com Staff
11 Jun, 2008
New York City

Staples, the office supplies leader revised its offer to purchase Dutch company Corporate Express for cash

1:00PM New York – Corporate Express agreed to accept offer that values the company at $2.6 billion.[/R]

Amsterdam, the Netherlands based Corporate Express agreed to accept cash offer from Staples Inc of € 1.7 billion or € 9.25 per ordinary share. Staples will assume € 1 billion euro debt and pay € 300 million to the preferred stock holders. The deal was consummated after Staples revised its offer price by 28% from its initial offer in March. Corporate Express will also pay a termination fee to break a deal that the Corporate Express signed with France based Lyreco.

Staples Inc hopes that the takeover will boost the profitability of Staples. The enterprise value of Corporate Express on the basis of this Offer is approximately € 3.1 billion.

""We have tremendous respect for Corporate Express,"" said Ron Sargent, Staples' chairman and CEO.

The €9.25 cash per Ordinary Share offer represents a significant improvement over the initial proposal of € 7.25 and offer of € 8.00 per share respectively.

Staples and Corporate Express companies' collective businesses, as of the end of each company's 2007 fiscal year, had annual revenues of $27 billion with more than 94,000 employees and customers in 28 countries.

With 2007 sales of $19.4 billion, Staples headquartered outside of Boston operates more than 2,000 office superstores and sells through catalog and the Internet.

Corporate Express has a global distribution network spanning North America, Europe and Australia, with approximately 18,000 employees working from more than 350 locations in 21 countries. In 2007 the Company generated sales of 5.6 billion euros.

Staples, Inc., ((SPLS)), in the last one year traded as high as $25.32 in Dec 2007 and as low as $19.69 in Jan of 2008.

Corporate Express NV, an Amsterdam based office products supplier today reported its recommends to shareholders to accept the increased cash offer from Staples, Inc made through Staples Acquisition BV.

Corporate Express has terminated the merger agreement with Lyreco. This merger was announced on May 21, 2008.

Ron Sargent, Staples Chairman and CEO said “Prior to finalization of the agreement with Corporate Express, Staples Acquisition BV purchased 2,085,403 ordinary shares, representing approximately 1.1% of Corporate Express’ outstanding ordinary share capital, for a price of € 9.25 per share in a transaction other than a regular on market transaction. Therefore, in accordance with Article 19 of the Dutch Decree on Public Takeover Bids, if the offer is declared unconditional, Staples Acquisition BV will be required to pay €9.25 per share to all shareholders.”

Corporate Express NV, ((CXP)), in the last one year traded as high as $15.45 in July 2007 and as low as $5.20 in January of 2008.