Staples Solutions B.V. announced that it has reached an agreement to sell its book of business in the UK (www.staples.co.uk and www.staplesadvantage.co.uk) to Banner Group Ltd. part of the EVO Group.
“I am pleased we have found such a strong partner in Banner to support our customers and employees going forward’’ said Dolph Westerbos, Chief Executive Officer of Staples Solutions. “Following the sale of our UK retail business more than three years ago, our remaining contracts and online business has been burdened with a spectacular distribution centre and a systems infrastructure that was simply too large and costly. Despite winning substantial new tenders and a strong revenue performance over the past two years, the heavy fixed cost burden meant our UK business remained structurally loss-making.”
“Now as part of a larger company, the future support of our customers and many colleagues is on solid ground, and that gives me great satisfaction,” Westerbos continued. “Banner will inherit a strong business, which showed its resilience once more during the corona-crisis. In fact, over these first 7 months in 2020 we grew our UK book of business compared to 2019, and I think that is a remarkable success. Credit to our entire UK team.”
Staples said it will continue to support its 3PL business in the UK, but are looking for a smaller warehouse to serve those customers. Staples Solutions will also honour all its UK pension obligations. Although this transaction safeguards as many employee roles as possible, some future reorganisation may be made.
“We are delighted to have reached this agreement with Staples Solutions and look forward to welcoming our new colleagues, customers and suppliers into the EVO family. It has become clear during the past months that we share a common approach to how we do business and this approach together with the quality of the business that is being acquired make the conclusion of this agreement all the more pleasing. We look forward to the platform that the wider EVO Group represents contributing further to the obvious progress that has been made by Staples in its UK business” said Steve Haworth, Chief Executive Officer of EVO.
