Founder Leonard Riggio Opts To Test Auction Waters, Will He Succeed?
| By Amir Ali Said |
The world's biggest bookstore chain, Barnes & Noble is up for sale. They've got shrinking cash, and declines in sales that have pushed the company to this point. Founder and top shareholder Leonard Riggio, whose family has run the company as its business declined, wants partners for a bid. However, he's having trouble finding somebody to back the bookstore chain.
Now here's the problem. Riggio has a 29.9 percent stake in Barnes & Noble. A billionaire investor, Ron Burkle holds more than 19 percent of the company and has made it clear that he believes Barnes & Noble has been mismanaged. Plus, word on the street is, nobody is going to show up for the selling party. Instead, Standard & Poor's Michael Souers, believes Burkle and Riggio are going to be bidding against each other. Apparently, Riggio is incredibly attached to Barnes & Noble, and couldn't stand selling out.
I've long been a Barnes & Noble fan. Over the years, I've bought at least 60 or more books from Barnes & Noble. I never expected the world's biggest bookstore chain to have problems. I'm not sure if this is problem is because people are online more, and don't have the capacity to sit down and read a book. Plus, with the release of the Amazon Kindle and the I-Pad Barnes & Noble and the Nook were kind of left behind. I've never seen anybody in New York with the Nook, but I've seen plenty with the Kindle and I-Pad. Point is, Barnes & Noble would have to come up with some crazy piece of innovation in order to stay alive, or else they'll be sold.





By Amir Ali Said
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