For Bakers partner Ben McLaughlin - who led the mergers & acquisitions team acting for Cor­porate Express - the deal is the next step in a longstanding relationship with the company.

"I have been advising corporate express since 1995, so I have been a close advisor to them for a long period," he told Lawyers Weekly.

"It's important to ensure that the shareholders in the company are all well served out of this trans­action, so that is my main focus at the moment."

The takeover bid is expected to be kick-start­ed in early April when Staples - being advised by a Corrs team including Braddon Jolley, Byron Koster, James Rosza, Jaclyn Riley-Smith, Nicole Graham and Clare Dunne - will send out an offer to shareholders for an off-market takeover.

An independent expert will then prepare a re­port in mid-April to determine whether the offer is "fair and reasonable" for the shareholders. Then in late April, it is expected that Corporate Express will issue a target company statement deciding whether or not to accept the offer.

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Staples already has a 60 per cent stake in the company and the takeover is subject to an in­crease to 90 per cent minimum acceptance.