Lots of Activity in B&N, B&N.com Stock

There was a considerable amount of activity involving the stock of Barnes & Noble and Barnes & Noble.com over the last week. B&N, which has been accumulating its shares of B&N.com stock, mostly in blocks of 15,000–50,000 shares, acquired a little more than one million shares of the e-tailer's stock on February 6, at a cost of about $1.1 million. The purchase, along with several other minor buys, pushes the number of B&N.com's shares owned by B&N to just over 2.8 million.

While B&N was buying B&N.com shares, one of the company's largest shareholders, Wellington Management Company, sold its entire holdings in B&N. According to B&N's most recent proxy statement, WMC owned 5.7 million shares of B&N, which gave it an 8.5% stake in the bookstore chain.

B&N also reported that company CEO Steve Riggio sold 336,486 shares of B&N stock at an average price of $17.55 per share on February 5. Riggio sold the shares after exercising an option to acquire the shares at $3.58 per share, netting him approximately $4.7 million.