After a lengthy process of soliciting offers to purchase Sterling Publishing, run by investment bank Broadwater & Associates, the targeted completion date of February 29 has come and gone, apparently with no deal in place. People familiar with the bidding process indicate that although there was at least one interested publisher until recently, that company withdrew and there are currently no offers on the table. Sources familiar with the offering cited a number of factors as potential complications to a sale, including a decline in Sterling’s sales through parent company Barnes & Noble’s stores, the separate negotiation of Barnes & […]
Bookstores
Maine-Based Mr. Paperback to Close 10 Stores, Lay Off 80
Mr. Paperback, which operates 10 stores around Maine, will close down by the end of April and lay off 80 full-time and part-time employees after more than 50 years in business. “It makes me really sad,” former Augusta store manager Helen Paganucci told the Kennebec Journalover the weekend. “I wish there were some way to keep it open.” Penny Robichaud, who co-owns Mr. Paperback with siblings Ralph Foss and Pamela Williams (another sibling, Robert Foss, retired several years earlier; the store was founded by their parents, John & Evelyn Foss) told the Bangor Daily News they are in negotiations to […]
Shipley to Sell That Bookstore in Blytheville
Owner of Arkansas’s That Bookstore In Blytheville and former ABA board member Mary Gay Shipley, 67, said in an e-mail that she is ready to sell the store after 36 years. “It is now time for change…. It is my sincere hope that someone or some group will come forward and continue TBIB in some fashion. I am not going anywhere and would be happy to help a new owner transform TBIB into their own vision.” Shipley adds, “I believe the next few years will be exciting for independent booksellers who embrace the multiple reading formats and who are located […]
Big Barnes & Noble Options Holder Presses Again for Splitting the Company In Three Parts
Before Barnes & Noble reported third quarter results, investor Michael Glickstein of G Asset Management filed with SEC on Friday to declare a position of more than 5 percent in Barnes & Noble. But in his case, unlike more substantial investors who have filed recently, he owns primarily options to buy just under 3 million shares, exercisable within the next 60 days. (G Asset also owns a little over 41,000 actual shares of Barnes & Noble stock.) That means G Asset’s net investment cost to play this game has been just $1.6 million. Glickstein, 30, has agitated for the board […]
Fidelity Takes A 10 Percent Stake In Barnes & Noble, Too
Shares of Barnes & Noble’s stock are increasingly being accumulated by a small number of holders, as Fidelity disclosed on Tuesday that their Fidelity OTC Portfolio unit had acquired over 6 million shares in the bookseller, or just under 10 percent of shares outstanding, as of December 31. Following the morning’s news of a 5 percent investment by Dimensional Fund Advisors, the company’s stock rose steadily during the trading day on heavy volume. After starting the day in the red, shares closed up over 9 percent, rising to $14.49. Ironically that brought the stock back up to almost exactly where […]
Dimension Fund Advisors Bets on Bookstores, Discloses 5 Percent Stakes in BN and BAMM
Wall Street analysts may hold a dim view of the prospects for bookstores, but that hasn’t stopped Dimension Fund Advisors, an Austin, TX-based hedge fund that manages more than $213 billion in investments, from making a bet on the big chains. On Tuesday DFA disclosed a 5.45 percent stake, or about 3.2 million shares, in Barnes & Noble, as of December 31, 2011, as well as a 5.76 percent stake, or about 911,000 shares, in Books-A-Million. (Barnes & Noble traded higher in late 2011 than it does now; Books-a-Million is up slightly since then.) Bear in mind that these represent […]