The Real-Life Dunder Mifflin Buys a Printer Company for $1.5 Billion... As The Stock Hits 1972 Lows

If you’ve been lying awake at night wondering what’s happening over at Xerox (because, of course, who wouldn’t be?), the answer is simple: It’s bad. Like, really bad. The office equipment giant (aka the real-life Dunder Mifflin), is currently reenacting Season 8 of The Office, where everything went downhill after Michael Scott peaced out. 

Xerox’s stock is down 53% this year, recently hitting a record low not seen since 1972. Yes, that’s the same year The Godfather graced us with “Leave the gun, take the cannoli.” Xerox, meanwhile, is leaving the printers, taking the debt, and calling it strategy.

Xerox may not be able to sell enough printers to keep shareholders from playing hot potato, but it just coughed up $1.5 billion to buy Lexmark, a printer and printing software maker, from its Chinese owners. Yes, the company that hasn’t figured out how to have a positive quarter somehow scraped together enough cash to buy a new asset (to hopefully right the ship).

Let’s call it what it is: a hope and a prayer. Xerox’s revenue has been shrinking for five straight quarters, as the digital age has made printers about as useful as DVD players. At the same time competitors like HP and Canon are running laps around them finding new innovative ways to make money. So, what’s the plan? Buy Lexmark, merge their printer portfolios, and pretend people are hoping for more printers in 2025. Groundbreaking.

Sure, this deal technically puts Xerox among the top five global players in printing. And yes, Lexmark brings 200,000 clients in 170 countries to the table. But how many of those clients are printing TikTok recipes or Googling “how to turn off my printer”? The market isn’t exactly exploding. Even better, Xerox claims this move strengthens its presence in the Asia-Pacific region and strengthens its share of the A4 segment (smaller printers common in offices and homes). Because, obviously, smaller printers are what’s missing in our lives.

To finance this venture, Xerox is cutting its annual dividend in half, dropping it from $1 to 50 cents per share. Longtime investors, who’ve already watched the stock tank, are understandably thrilled to take yet another hit. And the deal, expected to close in late 2025, is being financed with (you guessed it) more debt. You know, because that worked out so well for them last quarter, when they reported a $1.21 billion loss. CEO Steve Bandrowczak keeps calling this part of Xerox’s “reinvention.” Reinvention of what, exactly? Their role as the sad underdog of office supplies?

The Lexmark deal might buy Xerox a little time, but it doesn’t change the fact that the world is moving on. If Xerox doesn’t pull a miracle out of its toner cartridges, it could end up as little more than a punchline in a Dwight Schrute monologue.

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