Company Snapshot: Barnes & Noble Inc.

A Very New Corporate Structure for Barnes & Noble

Address
122 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10011-5693

Telephone
212 633-3300

Internet Homepage
www.barnesandnoble.com

Year Founded
1873

Total Stores
1,366

Total Annual Sales
$6,069,500,000 (May 2015) from $6,381,400,000 (May 2014) $6,839,005,000 (April 2013)

Senior Executives
Leonard Riggio- Chairman
Ronald D. Boire- CEO

Make no mistake about it, corporate Barnes & Noble revolves around the decisions of its long-term Chairman Leonard Riggio.  It is apparent that it was Mr. Riggio’s idea to specifically bring in Ronald Boire as CEO.  Mr. Boire’s start-date as company CEO is officially scheduled to be Sept 8, 2015.

Mr. Boire was brought into B&N based on his background of launching innovative electronics products.  His executive history includes high-level executive positions at Best Buy, Toys “R” Us, Brookstone, and most recently at Sears Canada.

It is no secret that a significant factor in the above noted declining annual company financials, is the disappointing history of the company’s proprietary electronics reader, the NOOK.  The NOOK was created by a dedicated, in-house team but never really caught on with the reading public, despite costly promotions   At the same time, Amazon developed its own popular series of e-readers, while ‘tablets’ emerged across the industry as a staple of society.  Finally, B&N basically gave up on the electronics behind the NOOK and essentially handed this off to Samsung.

Barnes & Noble is eagerly preparing for the separation of its college and retail businesses into two public companies.  Once the spinoff is complete, Ron Boire will become the CEO of Barnes & Noble Inc., which will include both the retail and NOOK units.