After Barnes & Noble acknowledged two SEC investigations into its accounting practices on December 5, a wave of class-action law firms announced “investigations” of their own and asked shareholders to contact them. On Monday two of those firms — Pomerantz and Ryan and Maniskas — both announced the filing of a class action suit against the company, filed in Federal Court in New York’s Southern District. They seek damages from the company and “certain” officers and directors, alleging violations of the securities laws that include “false and/or misleading statements” and a failure “to disclose material adverse facts about the company’s business, […]
Bookstores
Germany’s Weltbild In Bankruptcy Filing
Germany’s big bookseller Weltbild has filed for bankruptcy reorganization following longstanding disagreement among the 12 Catholic diocese that own the company on how to finance it, exacerbated by declining sales in the second half of 2013. The company said in a statement, “The lower level of sales expected for the next three years as well doubles the amount of financing needed until the company is restructured.” Reuters says that the filing “does not affect the bookstores,” referring to their half-ownership of Germany’s second largest book chain, which includes the Hugendubel stores. They have been the second-largest online bookseller in the […]
People: Huseby Promoted to CEO At Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble finally has a chief executive officer again, though nothing has actually changed at the company. Mike Huseby, who has been acting as the top executive since William Lynch was dismissed last July, has officially been promoted to companywide ceo. (When Lynch left, Huseby was promoted to ceo of the Nook Media unit and president of B&N Inc. Barnes & Noble Retail ceo Mitchell Klipper, who has been reporting to chairman Len Riggio, will now report to Huseby, along with BN College ceo Max Roberts. Riggio says of Huseby in the announcement, “Although a relative newcomer to the […]
BN Closes One-Time “Flagship” On Lower Fifth; Powell’s Remodels
Barnes & Noble closed their store at 18th Street and Fifth Avenue on Monday, spokesperson Mary Ellen Keating told Gothamist, following up on an answering machine message saying the store was permanently closed. A sign on the door tells visitors, “Thank you for your patronage over the years.” The former “flagship” store — across the street from the company’s headquarters — it was the only BN retail location in business when Len Riggio purchased the company in 1971, though by the company’s account it “had fallen into decline.” A few years thereafter, it was proclaimed “the world’s largest bookstore,” offering over […]
People, Etc.
Novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard, 90, “who is said to have sparked a love of literature in her stepson Martin Amis,” has died at home following a short illness. Martin, son of her third husband Kingsley Amis, called her “the most interesting woman writer of her generation.” Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, age 70, “accidentally fell at his home in Washington State Wednesday evening and fractured his first vertebrae.” His book DUTY: Memoirs of a Secretary at War publishes January 14, and “he will be promoting [it] wearing a neck brace.” Byliner editor at larger Will Blythe “was fired the […]
January Books of the Month; February Indie Next Picks
Amazon agrees that THE INVENTION OF WINGS by Sue Monk Kidd, already featured by Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 and the No. 1 Indie Next January pick, is the book of the month for January. The retailer’s full list of choices also features: The Kept, James Scott Andrew’s Brain, E. L. Doctorow Windfall, McKenzie Funk On Such a Full Sea, Chang-Rae Lee The Wind Is Not a River, Brian Payton Radiance of Tomorrow, Ishmael Beah Before I Burn, Gaute Heivol and Don Bartlett Ping-Pong Diplomacy, Nicholas Griffin Apple Tree Yard, Louise Doughty Hollow City, Ransom Riggs Separately, the Costco Pennie’s Pick for […]