Office Depot Inc. is moving its stock from the New York Stock Exchange to the Nasdaq exchange at the close of trading Sept. 25, partly to cut costs.
The Boca Raton-based office supply retailer, formed from last year’s merger of Office Depot and OfficeMax, said its stock will keep its current “ODP” symbol when its Nasdaq trading starts Sept. 26.
The move to Nasdaq will provide “a cost effective access to a portfolio of tools and services to reach investors,” Stephen Hare, Office Depot’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, said in a news release.
The move will trim the fees Office Depot pays to keep its shares on a stock market, analysts said, though the exact savings was not known and likely small compared to the size of the company.
“It’s probably a rounding error in the grand scheme of things, but a lot of rounding errors add up to real savings,” said Brad Thomas, an analyst with KeyBanc Capital Markets who follows Office Depot.
“I think it’s important in defining the culture of the new company.”
Office Depot and Office Max together had annual revenue topping $16 billion last year, yet “don’t even flow a penny of every dollar to the bottom line,” Thomas said. Cutting costs and restructuring operations are key to its future growth, he said.
Switching stock markets is not common. Other major companies have made the same move to Nasdaq in the past year, also citing costs and access to Nasdaq support services.
Hotel giant Marriott International switched to Nasdaq in October, and the parent company of American Airlines’ parent company did so in November after American merged with US Airways Group.
dhemlock@sunsentinel.com, 305-810-5009, @dhemlock on Twitter
