UPDATE 2-Barnes & Noble taps two outside directors
* Riggio puts himself up for reelection
* Nominates David Golden of Steve Case's Revolution LLC
* Nominates David Wilson, head of GMAT operator
* Shares down 3.3 percent (Adds Yucaipa no comment, background, updates shares, byline)
By Phil Wahba
NEW YORK, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Barnes & Noble Inc (BKS.N) nominated two outside directors and said its chairman and top shareholder Leonard Riggio would stand for reelection as the bookseller faces a proxy battle with billionaire Ron Burkle.
Shares in the company fell 3.3 percent.
David Golden, a partner in investment firm Revolution LLC, and David Wilson, chief executive of the nonprofit organization that runs the Graduate Management Admission Test, will run for election at the annual shareholder meeting set for Sept. 28.
Barnes & Noble has put itself up for sale after suffering for years from growing competition from retail giants like Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) and Amazon.com (AMZN.O).
Riggio is trying to assemble an investor group to buy the company, but faces opposition from Burkle, who says mismanagement has driven the chain's value down.
In a regulatory filing on Thursday, Barnes & Noble said Burkle had met with investment bankers in January 2010 about a potential buyout of the company.
Barnes & Noble said in a statement that the two board nominees would bring "significant technology and financial experience" to the company, an apparent bid to quell criticism from Burkle that the board lacked the expertise to navigate the transition into the digital books market.
Burkle's investment firm Yucaipa Companies owns 19.2 percent of Barnes & Noble. Riggio owns about 29 percent of Barnes & Noble, and earlier this week exercised his options to buy more shares in a bid to solidify his voting power.
Last week, Burkle submitted an alternate slate of three new directors, including himself; Stephen Bollenbach, chairman of KB Home (KBH.N) and a former Hilton Hotels Corp CEO; and Michael McQuary, CEO of Wheego Electric Cars Inc. [ID:nN12116052]
A spokesman for Yucaipa did not immediately return a call requesting comment on the Barnes & Noble nominations.
Burkle has faulted the retailer's digital strategy and suggested partnerships with large technology players like Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) or HP (HPQ.N), an idea rejected by Riggio, according to court documents filed last week.
The Nook electronic reader has helped Barnes & Noble win a share of the e-books market, but it came two years after Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O)introduced its Kindle and is up against Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) fast-selling iPad computer tablet.
Golden joined Revolution LLC, which was founded by America Online co-founder Steve Case, in 2006. The company's investments include car-sharing service Zipcar.
Barnes & Noble directors Michael Del Guidice and Lawrence Zilavy will not stand for reelection but will serve on the board until the annual meeting, which is scheduled for Sept. 28. The company is set to report quarterly earnings next Tuesday. (Reporting by Phil Wahba; Editing by Michele Gershberg, Richard Chang)
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I’m not here to talk about that.
This company has made the placement of there own needs in front of the publics needs and the Employee needs.
As a xemployee of 10…. Every dept. needed the right and correct tools, equipment for the job to get completed.
The training of new employees came from there NONdelagated, only favorited, leads of whom needed training themselves.
Every day there are many undertrained power equipment users,which eventually causes accidents.
English is another factor,Proper comms, never would work right, because Most of the employees DON’t SPEAK ENGLISH.
The new and some that have worked there for awhile, always felt too nervous and not comfortable to goto there supervisor.
So many came to me.
Advise, Help, General company. ?’s, Whatever.
But it’s very sad that a so called skilled mngmt system with open ears, only puts people down and makes em feel like they are not doing the right thing, but just using them as warm blooded workers, and not human beings.
1 example, Late one evening, A heavy snow storm came in and white out the outer city area for about 3 hrs.
The upper manager on duty, said NO, to allow us to go home 1 hr. early for our safety.
They need there quota above safety.
This cont. to happen very winter for about 3 years.
Thank You for your time.
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