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Originally Posted by Doug Pardee
The shift to e-books is expensive. It would be easier to do if the company were taken private.
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I see, I guess that's what stopped Amazon and Sony dead in their tracks.
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Originally Posted by Doug Pardee
Since the company isn't private, the cost of making the shift has pushed stock prices down, making stockholders unhappy and making the company cheaper to buy.
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Yes, I'm sure that the year-after-year drop of same-store sales, hundreds of store closures, and buying competitors (and closing some of
their stores) have
nothing to do with their falling stock price.
Nor do I see a private company as necessarily offering any advantages in terms of, say, getting cheaper credit. Taking the company private won't put more resources into B&N's coffers, since (if my understanding of the process is correct) those funds essentially buy out the existing shareholders.
I don't see where you're getting the idea that Burkle views the Nook as a "waste" of money, he doesn't seem to have said any such thing publicly. He's mostly harping on the favoritism management shows to Riggio.
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Originally Posted by Doug Pardee
....Burkle doesn't much care about books, e- or otherwise. He just wants B&N to stop spending money on anything it doesn't absolutely have to, so it will generate big profits for a year or so, which will in turn run the stock price way up, then he can sell his stock before B&N flames out. (You can tell I'm not a fan of Ron Burkle.)
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Gosh, really?
Whatever Burkle has planned, it's unlikely that skipping on the Nook / ebooks would have improved the stock price, and halting the Nook certainly won't get the price back up to where it was when he bought B&N. In fact, ebook sales are one of the few bright spots in their latest results.
I haven't seen any figures on the development costs for the Nook (have you?), and while I agree it isn't cheap, the reality is that B&N would be relegated to dinosaur status (and a lower stock price) without it.
So, while I won't say "Burkle is fantabulous," I don't see much reason to accept your view here.