NEW YORK CITY-William Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management has offered to help finance a Borders Group Inc. takeover of rival Barnes & Noble, according to an SEC filing Monday. The Pershing Square bid would fund an offer of $16 per share for the locally based bookseller, a deal that Bloomberg reports would value B&N at about $960 million.
A spokeswoman for B&N says the company has no comment. At Ann Arbor, MI-based Borders, a spokeswoman confirms that Ackman “has shared with Borders his perspective that a business combination of Borders and Barnes & Noble could create significant synergies.”
The Borders spokeswoman adds that the company welcomes Ackman’s participation in such a transaction. “We have previously expressed to Barnes & Noble our interest in such a business combination, and we look forward to continuing those discussions,” she continues.
Ackman now holds 37.3% of Borders stock, compared to 31% six months ago, according to SEC filings. Borders is scheduled to report its third-quarter results on Thursday; the nation’s second-largest bookseller has posted four consecutive annual losses.
The market-leading B&N last week reported essentially flat sales growth year-over-year in its Q2 results for fiscal 2011, with single-digit decreases year-over-year for its brick-and-mortar stores. Conversely, barnesandnoble.com sales increased 59% over the year prior, driven by B&N’s Nook digital content readers.
In September, Borders canceled plans to open a store on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, following news that B&N would close its location near Lincoln Center when the lease expires in January. The Lincoln Center space being vacated by B&N has already been leased to department store Century 21. Currently, Borders operates five Manhattan locations compared to eight for B&N.
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