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Kekst CNC is advising Office Depot as it rejects a $2.1B unsolicited offer from Staples’ owner Sycamore Partners and proposes an alternative plan to merge the companies’ retail and consumer-facing e-commerce businesses “under the right set of circumstances and on mutually acceptable terms.”
Boca Raton-based ODP is in the process of selling its CompCom IT services and is building a B2B growth strategy, according to chairman Joseph Vassalluzzo’s letter to Sycamore managing director Stefan Kaluzny.
He believes his retail chain merger plan could be executed more efficiently and with less regulatory risk.
Vassalluzzo said ODP is not willing to engage in a long-drawn-out process and expensive regulatory review with no guarantee of success unless Staples is willing to “bear this risk through a customary ‘hell or high water’ provision.”
Jeremy Fielding and Ruth Pachman of Kekst CNC handle ODP.
Joele Frank, Wilkinson, Brimmer Katcher represents Sycamore.
Prosek Partners represents UK activist investor Palliser Capital, which claims Japan’s Toto Ltd, the country's top toilet bowl maker, ranks as an undervalued AI asset play.
New York’s IGB Group is providing strategic communications services to Zim Integrated Shipping Services, which has 129 vessels, as the Israeli company is acquired by Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd in a deal valued at $4.2B.
Prosek Partners represents Nuveen as it acquires London-based Schroders, which relies on Brunswick Group for PR counsel, in a $13.5B deal.
Qualcomm has recruited Brett Simpson for the senior VP-IR slot at the San Diego-based wireless technology company.
Reevemark handles Eddie Bauer LLC as the retailer inks a Chapter 11 restructuring pact that has it conducting liquidation sales at its US and Canadian stores while working to find a buyer for either all of or part of the chain.
