Elliott Completes Acquisition of Barnes & Noble

Hopefully this will help them stay in business longer. It sounds like Elliot wants to keep bookstores alive. Doesn't sound like one of those slimy parasite venture capitalists who buy companies just to use them to borrow a bunch of money to pay themselves huge amounts, then declare the business bankrupt leaving their creditors in the lurch. I hope I don't turn out to be wrong.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elliott-completes-acquisition-barnes-noble-121500434.html

Aug. 7, 2019

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS, “Barnes & Noble”) announced today the successful closing of its acquisition by funds advised by Elliott Advisors (UK) Limited (“Elliott” or the “Offeror”).

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 United Kingdom. Barnes & Noble serves 627 different communities across all 50 states, where it remains the #1 bookseller in the United States. Elliott seeks to build upon this strong foundation as it addresses the significant challenges facing the bricks and mortar book retail space in the United States, applying a model that successfully turned around Waterstones over the past decade. 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.

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On the other hand

https://corporatewatch.org/waterstones-paying-millions-to-us-vulture-fund-owners-while-denying-staff-living-wage/

Waterstones paying millions to US ‘vulture fund’ owners while denying staff living wage
by CorporateWatch1 / Consumer Goods, News, Slider, Work / 29 Mar 2019

Waterstones staff are demanding to be paid the living wage. Management say the company can’t afford it but an investigation by Corporate Watch has found:

Waterstones’ new owner – US hedge fund Elliot Advisors – has set up an offshore financing scheme that could see it make £17 million a year from the bookseller.

The highest paid director’s £1.6 million pay packet is over 100 times more than staff on the minimum wage receive.

Elliott Advisors is a notorious ‘vulture fund’, chasing the debts of crisis-hit countries like Argentina. It is run by Paul Singer, a US billionaire and major conservative donor who has funded Donald Trump, George W Bush and the Koch brothers.

In short, Waterstones sums up capitalism in Britain today: billionaire owners and millionaire executives living off a workforce on poverty wages.

We put all the points below to Waterstones. It did not dispute the figures but a spokesperson said: “we pay our booksellers as much as it is prudent to do, with a particular commitment to a progressive pay scale”

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