DailyTech - Barnes & Noble Chairman Wants to Take Company Private

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IT Barnes & Noble Chairman Wants to Take Company Private
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - February 26, 2013 10:52 AM

7 comment(s) - last by Master Kenobi.. on Feb 26 at 11:05 PM

The company chairman is in talks with Barnes & Noble's board right now

Leonardo Riggio purchased the Barnes & Noble bookstore chain over 40 years ago. Riggio is now talking about taking a page out of Michael Dell's playbook and possibly trying to take Barnes & Noble private. Barnes & Noble continues to struggle in the retail books market and is facing stiff competition with its line of digital readers as well.

Riggio says that he will bid for the company's bookstore, online business, and other retail assets. However, he is specific in stating that he is not interested in purchasing Nook Media, the arm of the company that makes and sells the Nook eReaders.

Riggio is the largest shareholder in Barnes & Noble with nearly 30% of the company to his name. He is also the company's acting chairman. Riggio says that he will speak with the board and try to come to a fair price for the purchase, which is expected to be mostly cash. No further details are available on the move at this time.

Barnes & Noble is currently under extreme pressure with its core retail sales declining 1.5% to $4.9 billion during the last fiscal year. Much of the pressure is coming from online retailers such as Amazon, eBay, and others.

Source: Forbes

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Restructure, but don't go private

By hartleyb on 2/26/2013 1:24:11 PM , Rating: 2

Barnes and Noble is agood company that just needs a good CEO. Barnes and Noble has the structure, and the customer base to compete directly with Amazon. As far as their stores I agree with the earlier post, and would add that when I was in their Chorpus Christi, TX store and I had a good expereince with a cafe in the middle and free internet access. This type of change to all thier stores would pull in not only the business crowd, but the colledge crowd as well. They have the basics, just need to tweek a few areas.

RE: Restructure, but don't go private

By Master Kenobi

(blog) on 2/26/2013 11:05:24 PM , Rating: 2

Private is almost always a better option than Public if you want to rebuild a company. Shareholders simply get in the way of doing what needs to be done. I actually find the concept of public companies to be laughable when compared to well run private companies. Still, if you want to make a shit ton of money as the owner and get out of running a company, going public is a good way to do that.

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