Elliot Management Is B&N Buyer—For Now

The 2019 purchase price is pretty eye-opening, and certainly reflects the troubles the company has endured in recent years

Late last week, the Barnes & Noble board voted to accept a bid by private equity firm Elliot Management to purchase the bookselling chain for about $6.50 a share, which would likely see an all-cash deal net out at about $683 million – $475 million in cash, plus assumption of the company’s debt, according to Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly senior writer. As Albanese notes, that total represents a fraction of the company’s long-gone $2 billion valuation in 2006.

“Of course, a lot has changed in 13 years,”  he tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally. “The company’s education business was spun off a few years ago, but still, the 2019 purchase price is pretty eye-opening,, and certainly reflects the troubles the company has endured in recent years.”

The offer may not be such great news, but what could turn out to be good news is who is likely to take over the company—James Daunt, who is currently CEO at Waterstones the UK-based booksellers, which Elliot purchased in May 2018. Daunt founded his namesake bookstore chain in London in 1990.

“Daunt executed a bold strategy, under Elliot’s ownership, to turn around Waterstones, which after years of mounting losses is now profitable,” Albanese explains. “Daunt is a bookseller. No doubt. But can he do in the U.S. what he did in the U.K.? I’d note that the retail market in the U.K. is very, very different than here in the U.S., so I’m not sure how much of what Daunt did there will translate here. Certainly, Daunt does bring some welcome bookselling bona fides to Barnes & Noble, which has seen four CEOS in five years, and given no sign of a workable strategy to turn things around.”

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.