Friday, April 16, 2004

PETCO Funds Acquisition of 20 Stores in Sale Leaseback Deal

Yahoo News / PRNewswire-FirstCall - March 23, 2004

Office Depot, Inc. (NYSE: ODP - News), one of the world's leading sellers of office products, and PETCO Animal Supplies, Inc. (Nasdaq: PETC - News), a leading specialty retailer of premium pet food, supplies and services, announced that they have reached an agreement under which PETCO will acquire 20 former Kids 'R' Us stores from Office Depot for approximately $45 million in cash plus the assumption of lease obligations on leased properties.

The 20 stores -- concentrated in Florida and Ohio, with other locations in Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, North Carolina and New York -- are part of the 124 Kids 'R' Us properties that Office Depot agreed to purchase on March 3. At that time, Office Depot announced its commitment to convert 50-60 Kids 'R' Us stores to Office Depot locations as well as its intention to sell the remaining properties.

James Myers, CEO of PETCO, commented "In addition to enabling us to further penetrate key markets in an efficient manner, the acquisition of the stores will be funded without incurring significant capital outlay, through a sale-leaseback transaction providing traditional store operating lease financing for PETCO."
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