Staples Inc.
American multinational office supply retailing corporation
Staples Inc. is an American office supply retail company headquartered in Framingham, Massachusetts.
Founded by Leo Kahn and Thomas G. Stemberg, the company opened its first store in Brighton, Massachusetts, on May 1, 1986. By 1996, it reached the Fortune 500, and it later acquired the office supplies company Quill Corporation. In 2014, in the wake of increasing competition from e-commerce market, Staples began to close some locations. In 2015, Staples announced its intent to acquire Office Depot and OfficeMax. However, the purchase was blocked under antitrust grounds due to the consolidation that would result.
After the failed acquisition, Staples refocused its operations to downplay its brick-and-mortar outlets and place more prominence on business-to-business (B2B) services. In 2017, after its sale to a private equity firm, Sycamore Partners, the company was effectively split into three "independently managed and capitalized" entities sharing the Staples name, separating its U.S. retail operations, and Canadian retail operations, from the B2B business.
History
Staples was founded by Leo Kahn and Thomas G. Stemberg, who were former rivals in the New England retail supermarket industry, and Myra Hart.
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This entry incorporates text from “Staples Inc.” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.