That Bookstore in Blytheville has changed hands for the second time in just over a year. The Blytheville Courier reports that Chris Crawley and Yolanda Harrison acquired the store from Grant Hill, who bought it from original owner Mary Gay Shipley. Crawley and Harrison had begun discussions with Shipley — whom Crawley described as an “old friend” — even before Hill assumed ownership, then re-approached Hill once it was clear he was looking to sell. The new owners will officially take over the Blytheville, AK store in January with a grand re-opening. Main Street Books in St. Charles, MO will […]
Bookstores
Shareholder Sues Barnes & Noble Over Earnings Restatement and SEC Investigation
The SEC’s two investigations into accounting issues at Barnes & Noble have provoked at least one shareholder lawsuit, filed in New York State Supreme Court on Wednesday. In his complaint, David Shaev accuses the bookseller’s board and several of its executives of breaching fiduciary duties and an abuse of control. “Barnes & Noble has operated with deficient and inadequate financial reporting and inventory management systems since at least 2001,” Shaev said in his complaint. “These systems do not adhere to industrywide best practices and company internal audits have repeatedly shown them to be unreliable and subject to manipulation.” Later he […]
Bookselling Notes
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 […]
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 […]