Big shareholder urges OfficeMax breakup

ITASCA, Ill. — An investment firm with a sizable stake in OfficeMax Inc. said in a regulatory filing Friday that it favors the breakup of the office products retailer and might take action to ensure the company considers such a step.

K Capital Partners LLC, which owns nearly 6 million shares, or 6.2 percent, of OfficeMax, said it has hired The Blackstone Group as its financial adviser in connection with exploring strategic alternatives available to the slumping retailer.

The firm said in the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it believes that OfficeMax’s stock price “does not fully reflect its intrinsic value and that extraordinary corporate action, such as breakup or sale of the company, may be required to realize that intrinsic value.”

K Capital said it has urged the Itasca-based company’s board of directors to sell one or more of its components in order to improve the “undervalued” stock price.

An OfficeMax spokesman did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.