This week, the curtain fell on Barnes & Noble as a publicly-traded company with longtime CEO Len Riggio making his exit after decades in the bookselling business.
Catching up with PW's Jim Milliot
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Elliott Advisors has completed its purchase of Barnes & Noble, which was first announced in June. The acquisition was officially completed when over 81% of B&N’s shares were tendered by the August 6 deadline.
“As a result of the deal, B&N becomes a private company controlled by the private equity firm Elliott Advisors, which also owns the U.K. bookstore chain Waterstones,” explains Jim Milliot, Publishers Weekly executive editor. “Elliott paid $6.50 per share in a deal valued at $683 million. James Daunt, head of Waterstones, will run both the U.K. chain and B&N.”
Elliott Advisors’ purchase of Barnes & Noble also marks the end of a bookselling era, which can be summed up in two words: Len Riggio.
“Ever since Len Riggio arranged B&N’s surprise acquisition of the then much larger B. Dalton bookstore chain in 1986, Riggio has been in the forefront for some of bookselling’s major innovations as well as some of its biggest battles,” Milliot tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally.
“He led the expansion of the bookstore superstore concept, opening bookstores that averaged about 30,000 sq. ft. stores, stocked tens of thousands of titles, and featured plush seating areas, not to mention having restrooms,” Milliot notes.
“Under Riggio, B&N also developed its own line of proprietary books and acquired Sterling Publishing. B&N was an early entrant into online bookselling, although BN.com has never developed into being a serious online challenger to Amazon,” he adds.
Every Friday, CCC’s “Beyond the Book” speaks with the editors and reporters of “Publishers Weekly” for an early look at the news that publishers, editors, authors, agents and librarians will be talking about when they return to work on Monday.
