Barnes & Noble bought by Elliott Management in $683 million deal

Barnes & Noble is finally goi🦩ng private — and Len Riggio is finally leaving the cornಞer office.

The 7🌳8-year-old bookseller baron has agreed to sell the chain for $475 million in cash to Elliott Management, the activist hedge fund controlled by billionaire Pa♛ul Singer, whose targets have ranged from Samsung to Argentina’s government.

In a deal that also includes the assumption of more than $200 million in debt, Elliott will pay $6.50 a share for B&N — a 42 percent premium to where the shares closed on Wednesday before rumors of a deal began to circ𒆙ulate.

B&N shares, however, rose 11 percent on Friday, to close at $6.62, as Wall Street speculated aಌnother bidder may be lurking.

Singer will hand the reins at B&N to James Daunt, who is cꦉhief executive of Waterstones, a UK-based book retailer acquired by Elliott last year that has thriveꦜd against all odds by catering aggressively to local tastes.

The companies will operate independently, but lessons learned at Waterstones will be put to work at Barnes & Noble, Daunt said in a Friday interview with The Post. And for the first time in years, Barnes & Noble will benefit from deep pockets.
“We can invest in the company,” Daunt said.

While B&N’s 627 stores have grown “old and tacky,” the US market is now facing a shortage of brick-and-mortar b🍨ooksellers, accordi🐷ng to Daunt.

“They have been closing more store✃s than opening them,” Daunt said of B&N. “But we are in ℱthe business of having as many book shops as are sensible.”

He ♏plans to eliminate the cookie-cutter merchandising approach at Barnes & Noble i🌌n favor of empowering local store managers to decide which books and merchandise to carry in their markets.

Over the past year, Waterstones returned just 3 percent to 4 percent of the books it didn’t sell at its 293 stores to publishers, compared with the 20 percent industrywide return av🌸erage, he said.

Riggio, who bought Barnes & Noble’s first sto👍re at 105 Fifth Ave. in 1971, transformed the brand into a retail juggernaut tha🍷t steamrolled mom-and-pops in the 1980s and 1990s. In the years since, it has been squashed by Amazon.

Riggio i🐲s expected to get an estimated pay🔯out of $94 million in the deal.

“As it happens, I know James fairly well, and I am delighted to have him as our new leader. He is a bookseller through andꦰ through, and I expect he will make a big difference in our fortunes,” Riggio said of Daunt in a Friday e-mail to employees.

Barnes & Noble, which has been dogged by declining sales for years, has long been a target for activist 🔯investors who have urged the company to sell assets or go private.

In August 2010, amid pressure from billionaire activist Ron Burkle, the bookseller conduct💞ed a formal review process.

Liberty Media made a $204 million investment 𓆏in Barnes & Noble in 2011 after with💜drawing a bid to buy the company.

The company once again got caught in activist crosshairs when Sandell Asset Management pushed Barnes & Noble to sell itself in July 2017, arguing that the🦋 book chain provides a “vital service” that’s not being appreciated by Wall Street.

Barnes & Noble’s efforts🐟 to go private became a key issue in the abrupt exit of CEO Demos Parneros last summer.

Parneros alleged, in a federal suit filed in the Southern District of New York, t🐬hat Barnes & Noble chairman Len Riggio “fabricated” reasons to fire him.

Parneros argued that Barnes & Noble provided🧸 scant details of his fir🦩ing, allowing his ouster to be linked to the #MeToo movement.

Barnes & Noble countersued in October, claiming Parneros tried t🦩o “sabotage” a sale of the compa🎉ny “to preserve his position as CEO and contrary to the board’s clear directive.”

The suit is ongoing, though in💟dustry experts expect it to be settled𓃲 before the sale is finalized.

Daunt, for his part, said that “it’s slightly peculiar to be taking over this company” from Riggio “who is one of the great entrepreneurs in our industry.”
efore the opening bell Friday.