Quote:
Originally Posted by SensualPoet
The main question is whether you believe B&N needs access to more capital -- which fresh shareholders could provide -- or if it needs new brains at the top to re-think the business direction.
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Or that the top management has identified necessary steps that would risk their control if they were undertaken by a publicly-traded company so they are looking to take it private, restructure, and then go public again later.
The NYT/Reuters article quotes:
Quote:
Forrester analyst James McQuivey said the potential bid by Riggio could signal that hard decisions needed to be made that would be more easily reached as a private company.
"They might feel they want to buy the company back now and take it public later and reap the windfall," he said.
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B&N *needs* to shed B&M stores. A lot of them.
They need to shed staff.
They need to move (fast!) to online for both e- and p-books.
None of these are things they can do in a quarter or two so if they retrench while spending heavily on the transition, their stock price wil take a beating, leaving vulnerable to a hostile takeover.
As the magic 8-ball would say:
"all signs point..."