The largest activist fund in the world, Elliott, has completed its $683m acquisition of US book giant Barnes & Noble following approval by the majority of shareholders.
Elliott's acquisition of Barnes & Noble, the largest retail bookseller in the United States, follows its June 2018 acquisition of Waterstones, the largest retail bookseller in the UK.
Elliott will own both Barnes & Noble and Waterstones and, while each bookseller will operate independently, James Daunt will serve as CEO of both companies and relocate from London to New York.
Waterstones has 293 total bookshops in the UK, Ireland, Brussels, and Amsterdam.
Barnes & Noble serves 627 different communities across all 50 states, where it remains the number one physical bookseller in the United States.
Elliott is seeking to build upon this as it addresses the significant challenges facing the bricks and mortar book retail space in the United States, applying a model that has helped turn around Waterstones over the past decade.
James Daunt, CEO of Barnes & Noble said: "This is a very good day for bookselling. Barnes & Noble is the greatest of all bookstore names and will now benefit from the support of an owner committed to physical bookselling. With investment and concentration on the core principles of good bookselling, the prospects for this extraordinary company are bright."
Daunt added: "I look forward very much to working with the booksellers at Barnes & Noble, being already indebted to Len Riggio for his wisdom and grateful for the welcome and professionalism of the executive team during the acquisition process."
Paul Best, Portfolio Manager and Head of European Private Equity at Elliott, added: "Our investment in Barnes & Noble, following our acquisition of Waterstones just over a year ago, demonstrates our commitment to bookselling and to real bookstores."
Best added: "Barnes & Noble has an extraordinary heritage, one that we want to protect and grow. We look forward to working with James Daunt and the Barnes & Noble management team in this exciting endeavour."
RPA Perspective After books, toys. It turns out, reports of Toys ‘R’ Us’ death may have been exaggerated. The iconic toy retailer—which filed for bankruptcy in 2017 after piling up more than $5bn in debt—closed its more than 800 US stores.
But new parent company (Tru Kids Brands) has announced that two new stores—one in Houston, the other in Paramus, New Jersey— are to open. These new locations will be smaller, re-designed and fundamentally different in their operating model. The merchandise offering will be highly edited and the presentation will be far more experiential and interactive. Most notably, the new concept stores will powered in partnership with b8ta, the Silicon Valley start-up that has been a pioneer in the concept of "retail as a service."
In addition to its own stores, b8ta has worked with Macy's and Lowe's to develop in-store concepts which are more akin to showrooms than traditional retail shops within a store. By leveraging data to better serve customers, the b8ta model leans into the need to rethink the idea of stores as mini-warehouses where people go to pick out and walk out with their stuff.
What's fundamentally different about the b8ta model is that typically the revenue generated comes from vendor brands paying for in-store and online real estate. In the case of Toys ‘R’ Us’ resurrection, this fundamentally changes its underlying economics and shifts the role of the store from a place to buy things to a place to try things.
