Office Depot has rejected another attempt to take over rival Staples office, according to a letter sent by a company manager on Tuesday.
However, Office Depot’s parent company, ODP, said it was open to another type of transaction, such as selling its retail and e-commerce businesses to Staples or agreeing to a joint venture, according to the report.
In the letter, ODP chairman Joseph Vassalluzzo wrote that a transaction that is not a full takeover “could be carried out more efficiently and with much greater certainty and less regulatory risks than your proposal.”
“It will also help maintain competitiveness against non-traditional retailers and optimize ongoing choices for consumers,” he wrote. He wrote the letter to Stefan Kaluzny, the managing director of Sycamore Partners and a board member of USR Parent, the subsidiary of Staples.
The rejected offer was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Shares in ODP declined nearly 2% to $ 45 in pre-traded trading on Tuesday.
Staples has twice more tried to buy the parent company of Office Depot, ODP. Five years ago, antitrust officials blocked a merger between the two companies and sent shares of the two companies tankers.
In the latest attempt, Staples proposed to buy the company on January 11 for more than $ 2 billion or $ 40 a share, according to the Journal.
Along with Office Depot, ODC also owns OfficeMax, another chain of office stores, and CompuCom, an information technology company.
Read the letter here.