The new Word Bookstore location in Jersey City had a soft opening over the weekend. Another Barnes & Noble location will close at the end of the year, this one in Pleasantville, CA. The company says the landlord declined to renew their lease. It’s the ninth year-end closing for the chain that we have noted. Russo’s Books in Bakersfield, CA will also close, on January 31, after 24 years in business. The Washington Post offered a “feel good” story about a few independent bookstores that are doing well, in which they amusingly identify Jeff Bezos as “the owner of The […]
Bookstores
Riggio Sells Shares, and Barnes & Noble Stock Falls Further
BN chairman Len Riggio revealed in an SEC filing that he and his wife sold 2 million shares of Barnes & Noble stock on Tuesday. The sale was below market price, at $13.81 a share, “in a privately negotiated block trade.” As recently as last Thursday those share were worth over $5 million more — before the company disclosed two SEC investigations. Riggio also gave 160,000 shares to The Riggio Foundation, and the foundation itself “made a gift” of 80,000 shares. The filing says “the aforementioned transfers were made for tax planning purposes.” The Riggios still own or control roughly […]
Court Dismisses Bookseller DRM Suit
Fast on the heels of our round-up of a busy year in court for publishing, Judge Jed Rakoff has cleared the docket of one of the strangest cases of 2013. In a 19-page opinion he swatted away the “threadbare allegations” by independent booksellers Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Posman Books, and Fiction Addition against the largest trade publishers and Amazon and dismissed the lawsuit. On the vague idea that publishers’ acceptance of Amazon’s proprietary DRM “suggests that there may have been oral agreements or discussions” among the publishers, Judge Rakoff notes “the evasiveness of this allegation is remarkable.” Then there […]
BN Faces Follow-On Investigations
After we called attention on Friday morning to Barnes & Noble’s disclosure of two SEC investigations, market reaction was swift (and by most standards excessive). The stock fell by approximately $2 a share on heavy volume of over 7 million shares, closing down about 12 percent for the day, at $14.43 a share. You could posit that investors are worried that the investigations might pose a distraction to management — but that’s where the beauty of a company that runs itself with no ceo to be distracted ought to help out. Almost as swift as the sell-off was a wave […]
Barnes & Noble Discloses SEC Investigation
In their quarterly SEC filing for the period ending October 26, Barnes & Noble reported that just before the close of their second quarter, on October 16, the SEC notified the company that it was being investigated. The agency’s New York office is looking into: “(1) the Company’s restatement of earnings announced on July 29, 2013, and (2) a separate matter related to a former non-executive employee’s allegation that the company improperly allocated certain Information Technology expenses between its Nook and Retail segments for purposes of segment reporting.” BN says it “is cooperating with the SEC, including responding to requests […]
Sue Monk Kidd Tops January Indie Next List
The ABA listed their picks for next month: The Invention of Wings, by Sue Monk Kidd The Kept, by James Scott The Ascendant: A Thriller, by Drew Chapman A Star for Mrs. Blake, by April Smith Little Failure: A Memoir, by Gary Shteyngart Unremarried Widow: A Memoir, by Artis Henderson Badluck Way: A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West, by Bryce Andrews The Bird Skinner, by Alice Greenway In the Blood, by Lisa Unger Shovel Ready, by Adam Sternbergh If Only You People Could Follow Directions: A Memoir, by Jessica Hendry Nelson The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles, by […]