Just as rumors of a merger with Borders Books began to fade, the bookseller is once again in the spotlight as a major stakeholder, Aletheia Research and Management, is embroiled in legal troubles and an SEC investigation.
When Barnes & Noble announced it was looking for a buyer, we entertained the fanciful notion that struggling rival Borders might put in a bid. As absurd as the idea was, that buyout offer has been made. Here's why it has virtually no chance of succeeding.
Winfrey has selected two Charles Dickens classics, A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations, which will be reissued together in one 800-page volume with the Oprah's Book Club sticker from Penguin Classics. But readers can get them a lot cheaper, or free, elsewhere.
It has been a tumultuous year for Barnes & Noble, the country's largest bookseller, and its quarterly earnings report reflects that. Total sales for the quarter were $1.9 billion, a bit less of a gain than analysts had predicted, while earnings were a net loss of $12.6 million, also worse than expected.
Back in September, billionaire Ron Burkle lost his proxy war with Barnes & Noble's board, failing to kill the poison pill that kept him from upping his stake in the company. That made Wednesday's shareholders meeting all but a formality. But what's next for the nation's largest bookseller?
Barnes & Noble is hoping to boost holiday sales by testing new toy sections, following the "store-within-a-store" model, in five of its locations.
Borders, the nation's second-largest bookstore chain, has struggled for years due to competition from both fellow bricks-and-mortar outlets and online booksellers. It's latest move to combat that is an offer to match the competition's prices -- but the program's limits doom it failure.
Bookseller Barnes & Noble Inc. may enact limitations on the size of single shareholder stakes, as the family of founder and chairman Leonard Riggio and activist shareholder Ron Burkle battle for control of the company.
Barnes & Noble has unveiled the latest version of its Nook e-book reader. Aimed at mainstream readers, B&N hopes a new Nook with color display will rack up big holiday sales and help end Ron Burkle's proxy fight.
Borders Group Inc. is offering discounts on electronic readers throught the rest of the month as the retailer battles Amazon.com Inc. and Barnes & Noble Inc. for share of the rapidly growing e-reader market in advance of the holiday season.
This week, Barnes & Noble is expected to unveil a new, color edition of the Nook e-reader. As the company moves forward with new digital products, however, it faces lawsuits that won't go away -- and which have the potential to complicate chairman Leonard Riggio's plans to stay with B&N if the company is sold to the highest bidder.
Attention book lovers: The Nook and Kobo electronic readers are finally joining the iPad and Sony e-readers at Walmart. But with so many e-reading devices available or soon to be available at the world's largest retailer, could a price war break out just in time for the holiday season?
