Office Depot has reportedly rejected Staples' offer to buy it for $2.1 billion

• Staples' offer to buy Office Depot for $2.1 billion has been rejected, The Wall Street Journal reported.
• Office Depot's parent company said it would prefer a partial sale or joint venture.
• This is the third time Staples has tried to buy its office-supplies rival in 25 years.

Office Depot's parent company ODP Corp has turned down Staples' offer to buy it for $2.1 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported.

This is the third time Staples has tried to buy its office-supplies rival in 25 years.

ODP said it would prefer a partial sale or joint venture instead, the publication reported, citing a letter from company officials.

On January 11, Staples said it had made an offer to buy ODP for $2.1 billion in cash, nearly five years after its second takeover effort failed.

Staples owner USR Parent had said it would pay $40 per share for the competitor, causing Office Depot's shares to jump.

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In the letter, the chairman of ODP told USR the company would prefer either a joint venture or the sale of just its retail and consumer-facing e-commerce operations to Staples, the Journal reported.

This would attract less regulatory scrutiny, the letter reportedly said, after attempts to merge the two were blocked by antitrust officials in both 1997 and 2016.

Staples and Office Depot did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.