B&N Open to Possible Borders Purchase

By Jim Milliot -- Publishers Weekly, 3/20/2008 8:57:00 AM

Asked during its year end conference call if Barnes & Noble has any interest in buying Borders, chief operating officer Mitchell Klipper said that while the company has not been approached by Borders’s investment bankers, B&N would look at the possibility of acquiring its chief rival.

B&N is coming off of a soft year in which net income fell 9.8% for the fiscal year ended February 2, 2008, to $135.8 million, while earnings in the fourth quarter declined 9.2%, to $115 million. Earlier this year, B&N reported that total revenue rose 2.8%, to $5.41 billion in the year, and fell 1.7%, to $1.88 billion in the quarter. Results in 2006 reflect 53 weeks, compared to 52 weeks last year.

Klipper said the disappointing results in the fourth quarter were due in large part to the “rapid deterioration” of music sales. Customer traffic at stores has been down slightly. Discussing book sales, CFO Joe Lombardi said fiction was led by graphic novels and romance, while nonfiction was driven by movie tie-ins, biography, humor and The Secret.

The company repeated that comp sales for its superstores will be slightly positive for the full year, but should be down slightly in the first quarter, due to tough comparisons with the big sales of The Secret in the last year’s first period.

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