Digging into the financials of Barnes & Noble, it's mainly suffering from Nook's underperformance and its inability to command a reasonable share of the ebook market. Here's a news piece on their last quarterly report
"The company, which spun off its college-bookstore division earlier this year, also has seen store closings eat into revenue."
"The bookstore chain said it expects comparable-store sales to be flat this year, with the Nook weighing on results."
"Sales decreased 4.5 percent to $894.7 million. But comparable-store sales only fell 0.5 percent when excluding Nook products."
"The retailer also has worked to stem losses from the Nook unit by lessening investment and teaming up with Samsung Electronics Co. to produce the devices."
So overall the Barnes & Noble brick-and-mortar book+coffee+accessories business is doing relatively okay, what's hurting it is previous investment in e-readers and e-books that's tough to wind down.
I remember a similar thesis explored when Borders went bankrupt - comparable-store sales were relatively flat, but the company borrowed immensely to finance expansion, and it was the expansion that didn't pay off. The old school business, if left alone, would've tagged along.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-03/barnes-nob...
"The company, which spun off its college-bookstore division earlier this year, also has seen store closings eat into revenue."
"The bookstore chain said it expects comparable-store sales to be flat this year, with the Nook weighing on results."
"Sales decreased 4.5 percent to $894.7 million. But comparable-store sales only fell 0.5 percent when excluding Nook products."
"The retailer also has worked to stem losses from the Nook unit by lessening investment and teaming up with Samsung Electronics Co. to produce the devices."
So overall the Barnes & Noble brick-and-mortar book+coffee+accessories business is doing relatively okay, what's hurting it is previous investment in e-readers and e-books that's tough to wind down.
I remember a similar thesis explored when Borders went bankrupt - comparable-store sales were relatively flat, but the company borrowed immensely to finance expansion, and it was the expansion that didn't pay off. The old school business, if left alone, would've tagged along.