Business

Staples CEO to step down

AP Photo/ Lynne Sladky

May 31, 2016

1 minute to read

Ron Sargent, the CEO of Framingham-based office supplier Staples, will resign next month, the company announced Tuesday afternoon.

Sargent has been the company’s CEO since 2002. He will step down after an annual shareholders meeting on June 14.

Staples, which has been closing stores and focusing more on online business in recent years, had sought to merge with Office Depot, reaching an agreement to acquire its competitor last year for $6.3 billion.

But the deal was blocked by federal regulators, and that move was backed by a judge earlier this month. The company’s stock price fell by 19 percent in the aftermath of that decision and has not recovered.

Staples acknowledged the collapse of the deal as a reason Sargent is leaving now.

Sargent “worked diligently on the acquisition of Office Depot and the board appreciates the strong effort he made to secure governmental approval,” Robert Sulnetic, a Staples board member, said in a statement. “With 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.”

Sargent will continue to serve on Staples’s board, where he is chairman, until next January.

Shira Goodman, the company’s president of North American Operations, will replace Sargent on an interim basis. The company will look both inside and outside the company for a new CEO, according to the news release.