On January 22, 2015, shareholders of Family Dollar Stores, Inc. voted to approve a merger with Dollar Tree, Inc. Family Dollar's Board of Directors recommended that the stockholders approve this merger rather than a competing bide from Dollar General Corporation, primarily because of feedback that Family Dollar received from the FTC regarding likely enforcement action for each of the two potential mergers. Although Dollar General offered to divest up to 1,500 stores to remove any antitrust concerns, the FTC indicated that it viewed 3,500 to 4,000 stores as presumptively problematic.

Dollar Tree, on the other hand, appears to have significantly fewer overlaps with Family Dollar stores, with only 310 being presumptively problematic according to Family Dollar's report of its discussions with the FTC. As a result, even though Dollar General offered $600 million more than Dollar Tree, Family Dollar's board and the shareholders found it much more likely that a merger with Dollar Tree would receive acceptable antitrust clearance from the FTC than a merger with Dollar General.