When it comes to Office Depot‘s inadvertent announcement of its $1.19 billion deal for OfficeMax, it’s all apologies.
On an analyst call formally announcing the merger, Office Depot’s chief executive, Neil Austrian, attributed the brief but errant posting of a statement disclosing the deal to an error by a “Webcast operator.†The information provider, whom he didn’t name, mistakenly posted the retailer’s fourth-quarter earnings “well ahead of schedule,†prompting several news organizations to report that the transaction was now public.
The service provider turns out to have been Thomson Reuters, which handles scores of clients’ investor relations needs, including updating their financial earnings releases. The company said in an e-mailed statement:
“As a leading global IR website provider, Thomson Reuters Corporate Services business handles thousands of requests each year for updates and postings of new materials to clients’ IR websites, including Office Depot. Unfortunately, Thomson Reuters incorrectly posted this morning’s announcement of Office Depot’s intention to merge with OfficeMax prior to its intended release. We regret this error and are taking all steps necessary to enhance our processes and controls to ensure this does not happen again, as serving our valued customers remains our highest priority.â€
In an interview with DealBook, the chief executives of the two office suppler retailers sought to brush off the incident as a harmless error. Mr. Austrian sai! d that he called his counterpart at OfficeMax, Ravi Saligram, and apologized.
“I have to say, Ravi was a true gentleman in that regard,†Mr. Austrian said.
Mr. Saligram chalked it up to an “executional mishap†and added, “When two big Fortune 500 companies merge, occasionally mishaps happen.â€
