Timber!

Office supplies retailer OfficeMax Inc. (Shaker Heights, Ohio) has been acquired by paper and materials distributor Boise Cascade Corp. (Boise, Idaho) for cash and stock transfers worth about $1.2 billion.

OfficeMax, the nation's third-largest office supplies retailer, will combine with Boise Cascade's Office Solutions Group.

“Together, OfficeMax with Boise will be strategically and financially stronger and rival the size of its closest competitors,” said OfficeMax's co-founder, chairman and ceo Michael Feuer. “This business combination gives the newly formulated organization the ability to better serve all channels of the office products market from home offices to small businesses to large corporations. From a single store in suburban Cleveland 15 years ago, OfficeMax has emerged as one of North America's leading and largest specialty retailers, serving small business through our retail superstores, e-commerce, catalog and with a direct sales force. Boise Office Solutions primarily serves the larger institutional and corporate business segments. Melded into one, OfficeMax with Boise will equal huge benefits for all constituencies, including customers [and] vendor partners.”

OfficeMax, third in the nation behind Staples and Office Depot, operates about 1000 superstores in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Mexico. Boise Office Solutions (Itasca, Ill.), a multinational distributor of office technology products, office furniture and paper, had 2002 sales of $3.5 billion. It has operations throughout the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Mexico.