Hedge fund Elliott Management Corp buys Barnes and Nobel for $475.8 million

[Robert Zwilling]

Hedge Fund buys B&N
Wonder if this changes anything? Is it technological change or just plain business? Perhaps B&N stores will start selling a lot more than books, as the size of the stores are enormous spaces of real estate, or eventually just disappear as real estate sales.

 

[Brian G Turner]

It's difficult not to be cynical about it. Too often in the past hedge funds would simply sell the company assets, then rent them back - creating a big profit for the hedge fund, while leaving a shell of a company that's been stripped of assets.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Maybe I shouldn't be cynical about it? Apparently these are the same people who now own Waterstones:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1137100636800135169

 

[Robert Zwilling]

It's a tangled trail in some respects. Waterstones was bought by them in April 2018. Over the years Waterstones had apparently embarked on a course of not supporting ebooks(?), eventually rejecting both amazon and B&N Nook, and decentralising. It looks like they buy companies that once had great ideas, who can no longer get support from banks, giving them a chance to start again. At which point the company is reestablished-but usually smaller?, or sold to a larger group where it becomes a small part of, or disappears.

 

[BAYLOR]

It's a tangled trail in some respects. Waterstones was bought by them in April 2018. Over the years Waterstones had apparently embarked on a course of not supporting ebooks(?), eventually rejecting both amazon and B&N Nook, and decentralising. It looks like they buy companies that once had great ideas, who can no longer get support from banks, giving them a chance to start again. At which point the company is reestablished-but usually smaller?, or sold to a larger group where it becomes a small part of, or disappears.

Barnes and Nobel will survive and thrive.

 

[Cathbad]

Barnes and Nobel will survive and thrive.

Same thing I heard about Sears...

 

[BAYLOR]

Same thing I heard about Sears...

I think in this case , the outcome will be positive .

 

[Robert Zwilling]

I was wondering how books would make it through compared to other products the hedge fund has managed. They are timeless unlike fashions or mechanical devices. Combining Waterstones, B&N, and other books chains they may pick up along the way might form some kind of coalition. There are plenty of book companies that haven't done so well in the digital age, divided up and in less than stellar shape they are unable to get any traction. If they were all combined together it might create something that amazon first resembled, a vast collection of independent booksellers.