Riggio to take Barnes & Noble Private?

Can this possibly be a good idea?

It sort of mirrors Richard Schulze's attempts to take Best Buy public. Each of them founded the company, and saw it through tremendous growth. Now, both are struggling, thanks in part to internet based competition, but each have outlasted their primary bricks and mortar competitor.

Throw in Michael Dell buying back his company, and we've got a trend.

 

Money's cheap right now ... when money's cheap (and plentiful) you get lots of takeovers and buyouts and the like.

 

Yep, Dell just announced this kind of deal a couple weeks ago -- $24 billion.

Must also be nice to get away from Wall Street and the impossibility of any strategy that takes more than three months to implement.

 

Any comment from Freqposter? Or is he a silent partner in this?

 

Could the end be near for B&N:

 

A mass market store? No.

They need to be huge to offer a wide variety, but they'll never be able to stock everything Amazon does, nor offer the convenience or price.

And, if Nook is dead, there's no reason to expect a better future.

I can only see niche book stores surviving.

 

A lot of what Barnes & Noble sells in the stores are not books. There are games, gifts, a cafe, etc. They also have an online place and I enjoy that. Barnes & Noble has adapted better than most bookstore chains, but it may be that they make the best buggy whips.

 

Moddy, I'm a lot like you. I have an e-reader and like it but I still like having books around.

I'm buying fewer and fewer books though. Basically, if it's not written by a few select authors I really like, I buy the e-book. I still enjoy going to bookstores though. Except now I'm usually there to browse and if I see something I like, I add it to my list and buy the e-book.

 

I don't know about the end but there was good news for authors yesterday when Barnes & Noble reached a deal with Simon & Schuster relating to pricing, orders and placement. My wife has some S&S authors and this had been killing them as Barnes & Noble had been ordering fewer books from the publisher (if you see, say, a display of just Penguin authors in your store, they're paying for that and that sort of thing was involved in the fight).

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NY Mag had a good piece on the relationship publishers have with B&N.

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