Details about Barnes & Noble spinning off its
education division recently came to light in a report from Shelf Awareness. Shares of B&N Education, applying to be listed on the
New York Stock Exchange, will go to current stockholders and no dividends are
expected to be paid in the near future.
According to the filing with the Security and Exchange
Commission, B&N Education saw its revenue increase to $1.5 billion while
its net earnings fell to $19.4 million in the first three months of the current
fiscal year, which closed at the end of January.
The filing also noted that B&N Education operated
717 college stores and that its largest area of growth is through its
school-branded e-commerce sites at each. The company is planning to increase
that number by bidding aggressively on the 53% of college stores still operated
by their institutions.
“The prospectus is highly optimistic as to the new
company’s prospects,” Nate Hoffelder noted in his post on Ink, Bits, & Pixels. “I, on the other hand, can see that B&N
Education faces strong competition in a declining market. It’s not just that
students are buying less from their college bookstore, or that B&N
Education’s digital textbook offering is a train wreck, but also that it has a
couple of established competitors (Follett Higher Education and Nebraska Book
Co.) as well as an aggressive newcomer (Amazon) with extensive retail
experience and a kill-all-prisoners attitude.”
