Barnes & Noble
By: Deborah Johnson
Barnes & Noble was incorporated in 1986. It competes in the specialty retail industry with the chief competitors of Amazon, Apple, and Books-A-Million. It has subsidiaries of B&N College, NOOK, and B&N Retail, which includes eCommerce, barnesandnoble.com, and Sterling Publishing.
Leonard Riggio
Founder of Barnes & Noble
Michael P. Huseby
Current CEO of Barnes & Noble
Factors of Production
Most obviously Barnes & Noble sells books. It also sells things such as movies, TV shows, CDs, journals, and more. They also hold activities like book signings from authors. The college branch of Barnes & Noble sells and rents textbooks that are new, used, and digital. They also sell other products such as computer products, school supplies, dorm supplies, convenience objects, cafe items, and more. The NOOK branch sells ebooks, NOOKs, NOOK accessories, and more.
Barnes & Noble has a net worth of $1 billion and employs 41,000 people including seasonal and temporary employees.
Financial Information
The graphs are pretty much all stay the same except for anything having to with income. In the last five years, the graphs may have started out positive but they dropped negative pretty quick. For the most part, though, they're making a climb back up to positive. One reason could be that sales in store are dropping because of the convenience and lower price of online books. Which leads into another reason being the competition of online bookselling. The NOOK also might have taken a hit on sales because of the kindle and being able to get an app instead of the actual device.
Stock Information
BKS trades on the New York Stock Exchange. For stock prices it had a 52 week low of $15.45 and a 52 week high of $26.22. It currently is trading at $23.34. It had a two-for-one split on September 22nd of 1997 but plans to do so again some time during this year by either making two public companies or making NOOK private. It would pay out dividends of $0.47 but has suspended paying them out as of March 31, 2011. According to marketwatch most analysts say to hold the stock because it has not yet reached the target price.
News
Barnes and Noble was planned to close twenty stores. Because of an increase in profit, they are estimating that only thirteen stores. Part of the loss of profit for stores has to do with an increase of online sales.
Barnes and Noble has also decided to continue with NOOK sales. The NOOK creates a big profit loss because of the downfall of the entirety of the e-reader industry. Even Amazon has taken a toll from the plunge with its Kindle. Even with Barnes and Noble pairing up with Samsung to turn the NOOK into a tablet, sales did not increase enough to make up for the downfall. But with a few million NOOK users, the company decided to keep the device as part of its business for now.
Summary
I would not buy this stock because of their plan to close stores. That shows theyĆe not making enough profit, and the stock probably wont do that greatest. In the stock game I have lost $1,587.23. I have learned that I am not good with stocks and that as great as Netflix is, I should have never bought stock from them.