[Quoth]

All quotes from Wikipedia.

What will the new owners of Barnes and Noble do with the Nook? Or will they take a hands off approach to the management of B&N?

On May 23, 2016, Waterstones announced it had sold its ebook business to Rakuten Kobo Inc., and as of June 14, 2016, users were required to access their ebooks via Kobo's ebook site.

Waterstones (Formerly Waterstone's)

In April 2018, hedge fund Elliott Management Corporation bought a majority stake in the company, leaving Alexander Mamut's Lynwood Investments with a minority holding.[119] The sale completed in early June 2018.[120] Daunt remained as chief executive.

Barnes and Noble

In August 2019, Elliott Management Corporation acquired the company.

Nook

"In March 2016, Barnes & Noble stated they would no longer sell digital content in the United Kingdom.[46] It announced that from March 15, 2016, the UK Nook Store and the UK Nook Reading App for Android will cease operation. Whilst Barnes & Noble did not give a reason for ceasing Nook sales in the UK, commentators attributed the decision to declining sales.[47] On March 15, 2016, Barnes & Noble announced it would close the Nook App Store and Nook Video,[48] probably because Google's Play Store, which runs on Barnes & Noble devices, has been far more successful.[49] In the UK, those who have bought, respectively, e-book or video content will need to open accounts with other providers in order to not lose the content.[49]

B&N continues to sell e-books as well as digital magazines and newspapers in the US."

"On June 25, 2014, Barnes & Noble announced that the Nook division business would be spun off into an independent company.[77] On December 4, 2014, Barnes & Noble announced an end to its partnership with Microsoft connected to Nook and that it intended to complete the separation of Nook by the end of the first quarter of 2015.[78] However, in February 2015, B&N decided to keep the Nook division for the short term future.[79] In April 2016, B&N outsourced most Nook technical services to be managed by an Indian company Bahwan CyberTek.[80]"

There has been increasing difficulty for users of the Nook and purchasers of Nook content from Barnes and Noble.

Issues
Compatibility issues

Nook for Mac users have noted the app has compatibility issues with Mac OS 10.8 Mountain Lion. While the application requires OS 10.6 Snow Leopard, many users have documented the performance issues under Mountain Lion (and consequently all Macs sold since July 2012).[69]
Locked file table

The file table on the Nook is locked, meaning that external programs, such as Calibre, cannot be used to automatically organize uploaded files. All organization must be undertaken on the device itself, one book at a time, and such organization cannot be backed up or saved elsewhere.[70]
Lending restrictions

A book can only be lent once through the Nook's LendMe program.[71][72]
Downloading of NOOK Store content

Purchasing Barnes & Noble digital content and letting the credit card expire prevents re-downloading of the content until a valid credit card is entered into the account.[73][74] This is required because most downloads from Barnes & Noble have copy restrictions (DRM), and credit cards are required to unlock them.
On September 17, 2014, Barnes & Noble removed the "download" button from many books in the My Nook online library, without advance warning. The removal of these buttons, which permitted readers to download copies of their ebooks and transfer that content to other apps or devices, upset numerous users. User complaints and inquiries, via telephone, email, online chats, and social media forums, yielded the following, standard B&N response:[75]

We're sorry, but the ability to sideload NOOK purchased content has been discontinued. We apologize for any inconvenience. — NOOK Customer Care (@NOOK_Care) September 17, 2014[76]