Bank of America/Merrill Lynch downgraded their outlook on Barnes & Noble shares from neutral to underperform “on uncertainty surrounding the company’s digital initiatives and a deteriorating balance sheet,” setting a price target of $13 a share. A WSJ piece of a number of ongoing shareholder battles suggests that in the pending Barnes & Noble vote, “a recommendation by influential proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. will be crucial, and both sides have been lobbying the firm in recent weeks.”WSJ
Finance
Only In Europe? 2004 Sale of Parts of Editis to Wendel Is Declared Illegal
This one is a bit of a head scratcher. A European Court has struck down a 2004 European Commission decision that had allowed investment group Wendel to buy part of the Editis publishing assets for 660 million euros as part of Lagardere’s acquisition of Editis. At the same time, the court affirmed that Lagardere’s purchase of Editis was acceptable. They said the trustee who oversaw the report on Wendel’s purchase was not sufficiently independent. “The establishment of this illegality is such as to vitiate the lawfulness of the approval decision.” It’s not exactly clear what happens next. Reuters says “the […]
Scholastic Buys Math Specialist
Scholastic announced that it has acquired Math Solutions, which provides K-12 teachers with professional development services for math instruction, for undisclosed terms. They will run it as a unit of Scholastic Education, with with Christine Willig continuing to serve as ceo and president of Math Solutions and founder (as well as math educator and author) Marilyn Burns serving as a math education consultant to Scholastic.
The Daily Barnes & Burkle
In the latest proxy filings, Ron Burkle and Len Riggio continue to fight to show who is least suited to run the company going forward. From the Yucaipa presentation, Ron Burkle laments that he has invested over $200 million in company stock and “as of July 30, our investment is down over 27 percent.” (But since August 1, the stock is up almost 20 percent.) Meanwhile, Barnes & Noble now admits that the final cost of acquiring BN College was “only $439 million.” (Previously, for unknown reasons, they would not openly acknowledge the cost after deducting BN College’s cash on […]
Burkle Appeals Delaware Ruling Based On Riggio’s Options Conversion
Len Riggio’s willingness to pay an above-market price to convert almost 1 million options into Barnes & Noble shares has sparked the latest legal appeal from Yucaipa, which filed a motion in Delaware today asking for review by the state’s Supreme Court. According to their statement, Yucaipa moved to set aside the initial ruling after Riggio exercised his options and was denied. But the say the court indicated in that denial that the initial case “was tried on the premise that… Len Riggio would not be exercising out-of-the-money options” and found his doing so was “awkward.” It appears that Yucaipa […]
Burkle Says He Has “No Plan to Acquire Control” of Barnes & Noble
It should be no surprise that the war of words continues in the proxy fight between Ron Burkle and Barnes & Noble, with both sides embarrassing themselves in exaggerting the situation and claiming the mantel of “independence” to which neither is entitled. The most notable part of Yucaipa’s latest response from yesterday to accusations from Barnes & Noble is their continued insistence that “Yucaipa has no plan to acquire control of your company.” They ask why nominating three directors on a nine-person board threatens control of the company, and note that “in a March meeting with two of Barnes & […]