B&N investor urges company to sell itself

In the US, an asset management firm with a ‘meaningful’ stake in Barnes & Noble has sent a letter to the company urging it to sell the business, reports Publishers Weekly.

In the letter, Sandell Asset Management Corp asked B&N to hire an investment banking firm to consider the company’s options, including selling out to a private equity firm, or making a deal with an internet or media company. Sandell said that it has ‘become clear to us that all of the Company’s stakeholders would be better served if Barnes & Noble were operated as a private company or as a division within a larger company’.

Sandell said it believes B&N’s share price is undervalued in part due to investors’ overreaction to the problems facing bricks-and-mortar stores. ‘Physical books, and physical bookstores, are not going away anytime soon,’ Sandell said.

B&N spokesperson Mary Ellen Keating said it ‘welcomes constructive dialogue with all of our shareholders’.

As previously reported by Books+Publishing, B&N reported a 6.5% sales decline in the fiscal year ending 29 April 2017.

Category: International news