Staples

Staples Inc is an office supply store chain with over 2000 stores dedicated to the selling of office products, supplies and furniture. Their presence covers 27 countries in North and South America, as well as Asia, Australia and Europe.http://www.staples.com/sbd/cre/marketing/about_us/index.html

Staples, in terms of square footage of sales space, is the largest office products company in the world. In fiscal year 2009, Staples generated $24 billion USD in revenues.http://www.staples.com/sbd/content/about/media/

Staples was founded by Thomas G. Stemberg, who had experience in the grocery store business, in 1986 with the opening of the first store in Brighton, Massachusetts. In 1990, the chain began expansion to the western portion of the United States establishing a presence in the Los Angeles area. By the year 1999, Staples had opened its 1000th store and had operations in Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom.

In June of 2009, Staples bought the Dutch office supplies wholesaler, Corporate Express NV, in a deal worth $2.65 billion USD. The deal was described as moving Staples to, "a leadership position in the contract (large company) segment in North America and will create a solid base on which to build its global contract footprint, with a No. 2 position in Europe and a No. 1 position in Asia-Pacific," by Credit Suisse analyst Gary Balter.

On September 4, 1996, Staples and Office Depot had announced their intention to merge.http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6131 Due to concerns over the risk that such a merger posed in terms of stifling competitive pricing in certain markets, the Federal Trade Commission blocked the merger.