Borders officially launched “their” ebookstore, which puts a Borders veneer on a Kobo-powered store, and innocently announces that their “goal is to secure a 17 percent share of the eBook market by July 2011.” (The company still estimates that they have about 15 percent of the overall US book market, even as their sales have declined. With US sales for the most recent fiscal year of $2.65 billion, if you figure that roughly 70 percent of their sales are books–or $1.85 billion–their market share estimate is based on a book market of only $12 billion, as opposed to the more […]
Bookstores
Barnes & Noble Has July 8 Court Date with Burkle
Barnes & Noble reveals in their annual report with the SEC that investor Ron Burkle’s lawsuit against the company filed in Delaware Chancery Court in early May is scheduled to go to trial July 8. Burkle’s Yucaipa American Alliance is seeking to overturn the poison poll BN adopted to keep him from acquiring more than 20 percent of the bookseller’s shares. Burkle has even more reason to be agitated now than when he filed the suit, with Barnes & Noble shares down over 30 percent from two months ago. In the standard risk factors enumerated in the bookseller’s SEC filing, […]
Occasions: Westhampton Store Opens, Bertelsmann’s Anniversary
Books and Books Westhamtpon Beach has their official opening today, on schedule.Site Today is the 175th anniversary of the founding of C. Bertelsmann Verlag in Guttersloh, Germany.Billboard
Barnes & Noble Drops, Amazon Stops
The clobbering of Barnes & Noble’s stock continued yesterday after our post following their conference call, down over 19 percent for the day on trading volume more than four times higher than usual. It was the largest one-day drop in the bookseller’s shares since November 2001. At current prices that leaves the company’s market capitalization at a little over $750 million (and remember that it was just 9 months ago that the company itself decided the BN College unit was worth $460 million). In a rough day across Wall Street, Amazon shares declined as well, down approximately 7.5 percent. As […]
Waterstone's Sales Decline 6.3% for the Year. As Profit Evaporates
Waterstone’s parent HMV reported good sales for the overall group for fiscal 2009, reaching a new high of 2.017 billion pounds, though “the one area of disappointment was in the financial performance” of the bookselling unit. At 513.6 million pounds for the year, Waterstone’s sales fell 6.3 percent, as operating profit was just 2.8 million pounds, a significant decline from 10 million pounds a year ago. The company says that their previously-announced new strategic plan “is already beginning to have a positive impact.” On their controversial new distribution center, they say “it is clear that the implementation…also adversely impacted performance […]
Stock Market Turns On Barnes & Noble As Executives Detail Strategy
Following Barnes & Noble’s fourth quarter loss and prediction of more losses in the year ahead driven by their investments in technology, investors unloaded on the company’s stock in morning trading. On very heavy volume, the booksellers’ shares were down as much as 17 percent in the first hour of trading, touching levels not reached since the depths of the 2008 market collapse, before rebounding noticeably, down about 10.5 percent as we post. (The market is down broadly, with the S&P 500 off about 2.5 percent, and Amazon is down almost 5 percent this morning.) Having likely anticipated the market’s […]