2014, Dollar Tree announced that it would acquire Family Dollar for $74.50 per share, a deal valuing Family Dollar at $8.5 billion, and that Dollar Tree would also assume $1 billion in debt currently owed by Family Dollar, for a total of $9.5 billion. Dollar Tree CEO Bob Sasser said that Family Dollar CEO Howard R. Levine will remain with the company following the merger and will be appointed to Dollar Tree's board of directors. Dollar General entered the bidding, shortly thereafter, surpassing Dollar Tree's offer on August 18, 2014, $78.50 a share compared to Dollar Tree's offer of $74.50 a share. The enterprise value of the Dollar General bid was $9.7 billion compared to that of Dollar Tree of $9.2 billion, while the quantum return to shareholders was varying as the stock and cash deal valuation was subjected to fluctuations of price of the competing bidders stock. On August 20, 2014, Family Dollar rejected the Dollar General bid, saying it was not a matter of price, but concerns over antitrust issues that had convinced the company and its advisers that the deal could not be concluded on the terms proposed. Days after, Dollar General CEO Rick Dreiling sent a letter to the Family Dollar board of directors claiming that Levine rejected merger requests to protect his job. Levine, in a statement, said the Family Dollar board had been analyzing potential antitrust issues that could arise from doing a deal with Dollar General since the start of the year, and that was the reason it was not accepting the Dollar General bid. On January 22, 2015, Family Dollar shareholders approved the Dollar Tree bid. Several stores were required to be sold as a condition of the sale. Sycamore Partners acquired the stores in 2014 under the corporate name Dollar Express. The stores continued to operate under the Family Dollar name. In 2017, Dollar General acquired Dollar Express and converted the stores. As a result of Family Dollar's sale to Dollar Tree, some Family Dollar stores have opened in the same plaza, and at times even next door to Dollar Tree locations. On March 6, 2019, the retailer announced that it will close up to 400 stores nationwide due to heavy pressure from an activist investor. Most store locations were either shut down entirely or replaced with Dollar Tree stores. The company has deployed a newer store format known as "H2"