OfficeMax 2006 Annual Report Download - page 5

1
PART I
ITEM 1.BUSINESS
As used in this 2006 Annual Report onForm 10-K, the terms “OfficeMax,” the “Company,” and
“we” include OfficeMax Incorporated and its consolidated subsidiaries and predecessors. Our
Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) filings, which include this Annual Report on Form 10-K,
Quarterly Reports on Form10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and all related amendments, are
availablefree of charge on our website at www.officemax.com and can be found by clickingon“About
us,” “Investors” and then “SEC filings.” Our SEC filings are available as soon as reasonably
practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish it to, the SEC. Last year, wefiled
our annual Chief Executive Officer certificationdated May 18, 2006, with the New York Stock
Exchange.Attached as exhibits to this Form10-K you will find certifications of our Chief Executive
Officer and ChiefFinancial Officer required under Sections 302 and 906 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of
2002.
General Overview
OfficeMax is a leader in both business-to-business and retail office products distribution. We
provide office supplies and paper, print and document services, technology products and solutions
and furniture to large, medium and smallbusinesses, government offices, and consumers. OfficeMax
customers are served bymore than 36,000 associatesthrough direct sales, catalogs, the Internet and
retail stores. Our common stock trades on theNew York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol
OMX, and our corporate headquarters is in Naperville, Illinois.
OfficeMax Incorporated (formerly Boise Cascade Corporation) was organized as Boise Payette
Lumber Company, a Delaware corporation, in1931 as a successor to an Idaho corporation formed in
1913. In 1957, the company’s name was changed to Boise Cascade Corporation. On December 9,
2003,Boise Cascade Corporation acquired 100% of the voting securities of OfficeMax, Inc. That
acquisitionmore than doubled thesize of ouroffice products distribution business and expanded that
business into the U.S. retail channel. In connectionwith the sale of ourpaper, forest products and
timberland assets described below, the Company’s name was changed from Boise Cascade
Corporation to OfficeMax Incorporated, and the names of our office products segments were changed
from Boise Office Solutions,Contractand Boise Office Solutions, Retail to OfficeMax, Contract and
OfficeMax, Retail. The Boise Cascade Corporation and Boise Office Solutions names were used in
documentsfurnished to or filed with the SEC prior tothe sale of our paper, forest products and
timberland assets.
References made to the OfficeMax,Inc. acquisition andthe OfficeMax, Inc. integration in this
Form 10-K refer to BoiseCascade Corporation’s acquisition of OfficeMax, Inc. in December 2003, and
the related integration activities. (For more information about our integration activities, see Note 4,
Integration and Facility Closures, of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements in “Item 8.
Financial Statements and Supplementary Data” of this Form10-K.)
On October 29, 2004,we sold our paper, forest products and timberland assets to affiliates of
Boise Cascade, L.L.C., a new company formed by Madison Dearborn Partners LLC (the “Sale”). The
Sale did not include our facility near Elma, Washington. (See Note3, Discontinued Operations, of the
Notes to ConsolidatedFinancial Statements in “Item8. Financial Statements and Supplementary
Data” of this Form 10-Kfor moreinformation about the Elma facility.) With the Sale, we completed the
Company’s transition, begun inthe mid-1990s, from a predominately manufacturing-based company
to an independent office products distribution company. On October 29, 2004, as part ofthe Sale,we
invested $175 million in thesecurities of affiliates of Boise Cascade, L.L.C. This investment represents