{"id":1952,"date":"2016-06-03T08:25:10","date_gmt":"2016-06-03T15:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/?p=1952"},"modified":"2016-06-03T08:25:10","modified_gmt":"2016-06-03T15:25:10","slug":"staplesoffice-depot-merger-fails-ceo-steps-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/re-tales.net\/?p=1952","title":{"rendered":"Staples\/Office Depot Merger Fails, CEO Steps Down"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-10242603\" src=\"https:\/\/consumermediallc.files.wordpress.com\/2016\/05\/ron-sargent-ceo.jpg?w=245&amp;h=300\" alt=\"ron-sargent-ceo\" width=\"157\" height=\"192\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This could imply bad news for Walgreen&#8217;s acquisition of Rite-Aid, because the FTC put the halt on the proposed Staples\/Office Depot merger saying it would impact pricing and competition for customers. \u00a0So there will still be 2 stationery stores to visit, unless Depot ends up going out of business.<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, the failed merger forced the resignation of Ron Sargent, who had been the CEO for 14 years and with Staples\u00a0for over 25 years. \u00a0 I spent a couple years at Staples and never met him but those who did said he was a good guy and cared about the employees and the company a great deal. \u00a0 They&#8217;ll be interviewing internal and external candidates to replace him, and it seems like 90% of the time it&#8217;s an outside hire that gets the job. \u00a0 I hope it&#8217;s not <a href=\"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/?p=207\">Rick Dreiling.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Staples announced today that its chairman and chief executive officer, Ron Sargent, is giving the public his two-week notice: he\u2019ll be stepping down on June 14, after the company\u2019s next shareholders meeting. Sargent has been CEO of the office superchain since 2002, and has worked for Staples since 1989, when the company was only three years old.<span id=\"more-10242601\"><\/span><\/em><br \/>\n<em>\u201cWith the termination of the merger, we mutually agreed that now is the right time to transition to new management to lead Staples through its next phase of growth,\u201d Robert Sulentic, the board\u2019s Independent Lead Director, said <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businesswire.com\/news\/home\/20160531006473\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\">in a statemen<\/a>t. New management with a plan for growth other than acquiring the chain\u2019s only national competitor in selling office supplies to medium and large businesses, that is.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Staples really, really wanted to acquire Office Depot, a national competitor in retail office-supply stores and in the corporate contract supply business. The Federal Trade Commission <a href=\"https:\/\/consumerist.com\/2016\/05\/11\/staples-and-office-depot-detail-plans-to-go-on-as-strong-single-office-supply-stores\/\" target=\"_blank\">was granted an injunction stopping the merger<\/a> earlier this month. The retailers <a href=\"https:\/\/consumerist.com\/2016\/05\/12\/why-didnt-staples-and-office-depot-bother-with-a-defense-against-the-ftc\/\" target=\"_blank\">didn\u2019t bother putting up a defense<\/a> against the agency\u2019s claim that their merger would be bad for competition and for their corporate customers.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The company\u2019s president of North America Operations, Shira Goodman, will take over as interim CEO, and they will interview internal and external candidates for the permanent post. Sargent will stay on as a \u201cnon-executive\u201d chairman until the current fiscal year ends and the end of January 2017.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/consumerist.com\">Consumerist.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; This could imply bad news for Walgreen&#8217;s acquisition of Rite-Aid, because the FTC put the halt on the proposed Staples\/Office Depot merger saying it would impact pricing and competition for customers. \u00a0So there will still be 2 stationery stores to visit, unless Depot ends up going out of business. Sadly, <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/re-tales.net\/?p=1952\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-retail-companies"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1952"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1954,"href":"https:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1952\/revisions\/1954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}