I work for an office supply company, Corporate Express, that specializes in business-to-business sales. (Call us Dunder-Mifflin but on a larger and hopefully less dysfunctional scale.) We do not have a retail storefront; sales are conducted online or via customer service. It has been a great place to work and I absolutely love my job and my boss.
I have shared with a few people that a competitor, Staples, has been trying to do acquire Corporate Express for the past couple of months. Staples specializes in retail office supply sales and Corporate Express, as mentioned before, is business-to-business. With the slowdown in economy, retail is going to be hit harder than a company doing business-to-business sales because, well, businesses will always need office supplies, even if they have to scale back.
Staples started out with a couple of bids in March, but they undervalued our company and were instantly refused by the powers-that-be in our Amsterdam headquarters. But over the past couple of days, Staples has increased their bid and become even more “hostile” in their bids. (According to the business analysts, it is considered a hostile takeover attempt because the bids for takeover are unsolicited by Corporate Express and lately, they are even bypassing the board and taking the bid straight to our shareholders instead.)
Today there was a surprising (to us peons who aren’t in the know) turn of events though. Corporate Express is purchasing another business-to-business office supply company, Lyreco. I hadn’t heard of this company before; they are based in France. Acquiring them will not only increase our share of the business-to-business market, it will also help fend off a takeover from Staples as we will be a more formidable company than before. Take that Staples!
You can read the latest press release here if you are interested.