During the current quarter, the company predicted that comp-store sales at B&N will fall between 1% and 3% and B&N College store sales will be flat.
Barnes & Noble noted that the loss in the quarter included expenses of $9.5 million resulting from the company's successful defense of a lawsuit brought by shareholder Ron Burkle of Yucaipa Companies. (See New York item below.) B&N said, too, that costs in connection with legal matters and the proxy contest next month will raise the expected loss for the full year.
B&N CEO William Lynch commented: "As we have previously stated, the company is allocating significant financial resources to strengthen its digital businesses in fiscal 2011 to maximize our ability to power growth and capture share of the emerging digital market. We are encouraged by our results to date, which are ahead of plan, and remain committed to transforming Barnes & Noble to a company committed to expanding and enhancing the reading experience for book lovers and college students through rich physical and digital content, an industry-leading retail and eCommerce offering and world-class digital devices, software and technology."
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In a feature article headlined "The Billionaire and the Book Lover," New York
magazine asked the question that has been on many minds recently: "Are
Barnes & Noble founder Len Riggio and his nemesis Ron Burkle the
only people in America who still want to own a mega-bookstore?"
New York
noted that Riggio "knows where he wants Barnes & Noble to end up:
in a world, perhaps just over the horizon, where selling books is
profitable, whether they are physical or digital, sold in stores or
online. The problem is no one in the publishing industry quite knows how
to get there, and at times Riggio has seemed overwhelmed by the task."
Burkle
told the magazine "this is not a battle between Len and I, even though
that’s what everyone wants it to be." According to New York,
however, "in the next breath, Burkle said that now that Barnes &
Noble's board was looking for a buyer, he would certainly consider a
bid. Indeed, back when he first invested, he had considered making a
$25-per-share offer to shareholders, and with the stock currently
trading at around $15, the company could almost certainly be had for
less today. 'I think people will continue to buy books,' Burkle said.
'But even if we’re wrong, Barnes & Noble will still be alive for
five or ten more years. They really should be the last store standing.'"
New York
concluded: "For most of his long career, Riggio has been the innovator,
the opportunistic instrument of creative destruction. Now, as he nears
the final chapter, he is discovering what it means to be old-fashioned."