The long-running litigation surrounding Barnes & Noble’s August 2009 acquisition of BN College from company founder and chairman Leonard Riggio is finally over, as Riggio has agreed to settle a series of lawsuits launched by shareholders with a $29 million payment from personal funds. But he won’t actually pay out any money personally; rather, he will forgo some money that is currently owed to him by Barnes & Noble. The settlement reduces by $22.75 million a still outstanding $150 million promissory note that Barnes & Noble owes to Riggio as part of College’s acquisition, plus a $6.3 million reduction in […]
Bookstores
Another Barnes & Noble Shareholder Reduces Stake
Following investor Ron Burkle’s spinoff of Barnes & Noble shares from his various investment funds to individual investors, another block holder in the bookseller announced a reduction in their holdings. Mutual fund company Fidelity said in an SEC filing that as of May 31 their 10 percent stake in BN was reduced to a 1.956 percent share (comprising 1.177 million shares of stock). The larger holding had been revealed in February, and was acquired as of December 31, 2011. BN’s stock has been under continuing downward pressure, probably because of these large sellers over the past few weeks. Shares closed […]
Ingram Shows What’s Selling Well At Indie Stores; Codex Addresses the “Discovery Gap”
Last Monday’s Publishers Launch BEA conference was a packed day of data, insights and news (like the announcement of Tor’s DRM-free ebookstore) worth sharing, and now we have a chance to catch up a bit. At the PLC site we have posted slides from five of the presentations so far, open to all, and we’ll have some audio on the way later as well. One presentation of widespread interest was Ingram chief content officer Phil Ollila‘s new data–commissioned by Publishers Launch–analyzing how the rise of ebooks affects what is sold in physical bookstores. Ollila’s primary focus was to identify opportunities […]
Bookselling: Blurbs From Booksellers Spurred US Deal For Historical Thriller; Discounting Outlawed on New Books in Israel; and More
The WSJ looks at the publication path of Michael Ennis‘s forthcoming historical thriller debut THE MALICE OF FORTUNE, which Doubleday will release in September. The piece emphasizes how Ennis’ agent, Dan Lazar at Writers House, sent out dozens of copies of the novel (the WSJ said 48, but Lazar clarified to us that it was “over 60”) to booksellers by self-publishing bound galleys, with 23 of those booksellers – including Books & Books owner Mitchell Kaplan, Tattered Cover’s Sarah Harvey, and Jenn Northington at WORD — responding with enthusiastic blurbs. But equally important is that Ennis’s original draft, at around […]
Burkle Divests BN Stock as Promised, Reducing Stake to Just 0.9 Percent
In a filing with the SEC Tuesday evening Ron Burkle revealed that his Yucaipa Cos. funds, Yucaipa American Alliance II and Yucaipa American Alliance Parallel Funds, had divested themselves of the bulk of the nearly 20 percent stake in Barnes & Noble on May 31. Yucaipa said it had distributed more than 11.9 million shares “in kind” on a pro rata basis to unnamed investors. When Yucaipa explained the original filing in mid-May, they insisted that the move was a reallocation among Burkle’s complicated interests, “distributing shares to some of its affiliates,” and not a move to sell or divest their stake. […]
Teicher Promises New Indie eBook Solution, Calls Again for Letters to DOJ
At the American Booksellers Association’s annual meeting at BEA, ABA chief executive Oren Teicher celebrated encouraging membership and indie sales data and reinforced that “I believe this moment in our industry is rich with promise and opportunity.” (In addition to the data we have already reported, Teicher declared that across the network of Indie Commerce stores, “gross annual sales, year-to-date over year-to-date, are up 92 percent.” And separately, ABA board vice president Steve Bercu clarified that the reported gain of 55 new full ABA members comprises 77 new locations in all.) Teicher told members “you have our strongest assurance that there […]