Munich/Venlo, July 24, 2020 – Office Depot Europe, a portfolio company of AURELIUS Equity Opportunities SE & Co. KGaA (ISIN: DE000A0JK2A8) has agreed to sell its Spanish contract business unit to strategic buyer Lyreco, a leading provider of office supplies headquartered in Marly, France.

The contract business unit ranks among the leading players in the Spanish market, serving small, medium and large international and national blue chip companies from various industries. The sale comes after a successful realignment of the Spanish contract business since the group was acquired by AURELIUS in January 2017. Over the last three years, the assortment was expanded away from what was a stationary focus to end-to-end workspace solutions and product offerings including furniture key turn projects and managed print services. Lyreco will integrate this business with its existing Spanish presence and continue to develop the business ensuring best-in-class service levels.

The sale of the Spanish contract business unit is part of the ongoing transformation of Office Depot Europe. It is the third exit of an Office Depot business to complete in the past nine months. Office Depot Europe sold its Central Eastern European business in November 2019 and its Nordic division in May 2020. The exit of Office Depot’s Spanish contract business follows the same strategic rationale, freeing resources to allow Office Depot Europe to focus on its core European ecommerce centric business activities.