Barnes & Noble Inc.
Is Borders saved? The Gores Group, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm that often invests in distressed companies and has hopes to build an entertainment conglomerate, has emerged as a possible bidder for 200 of the bookstore chain’s remaining 405 stores in a deal worth about $200 million, the WSJ reports. The talks “remain fluid and could fall apart.”
Barnes & Noble, the nation’s largest book chain, said on Thursday it had received a proposal from Liberty Media to acquire the company, more than nine months after the bookseller put itself up for sale.
Liberty Media offered to pay $17 a share in cash, valuing the company at $1.02 billion. The offer represents a 20 percent premium to Barnes & Noble’s closing stock price on Thursday. The stock last traded above $17 in February.
Borders Group's recent bankruptcy filing and announced closing of more than 220 stores nationwide seems to warrant a closer look at trends in book retailing.
When I was a kid, we went to the library to browse books. I had no particular idea what I was looking for; I just loved walking up and down the aisles finding the unexpected.
The Nook Color has always been considered a wannabe Android tablet and the latest update makes the 7–incher more tablet than ereader. Previously, modders opened up the platform to all sorts of Android tomfoolery, allowing users to run nearly stock Android builds that brought email, proper web browsing and apps to the device. Never mind that nonsense, Barnes & Noble just added those features themselves.
Over the past year or so, I have been attending timely and informative book publishing lunch hour Meetup meetings—first come, first serve by advance sign-up —sponsored by Susan Danziger's Publishing Point. They are held in donated upper- floor meeting rooms in the high-rise midtown Manhattan headquarters of major houses such as Random House, Hachette, News Corporation, McGraw Hill—and this past March 23, by CBS, parent of Simon & Schuster, in Studio 19.
The saga of the Borders bookstore chain has entered a forlorn new chapter. In December, Borders attempted to buy Barnes & Noble, its biggest (and better) competitor; last month, having failed, it filed for bankruptcy.
Bookseller Barnes & Noble has tapped Interpublic Group of Cos.' Mullen, Boston, as its creative agency. The retailer is planning to refresh its brand with an effort that includes an estimated $40 million investment in marketing and a new look for stores, people familiar with the matter said.
Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world's largest bookseller, today announced that it collected and donated more than one million books for children in need all over the country during its 2010 Holiday Book Drive.
(Press Release) New York, New York, December 30, 2010—Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world's largest bookseller, today announced that with millions of NOOK eReading devices sold, the line has become the company's biggest bestseller ever in its nearly 40-year history.