Barnes and Nobles Blinks.

In reading all the press reports of the possible sale of Barnes and Nobles, the one thing that I find hard to decipher is the motivations of the people behind the various factions.

What direction do they want to take the company? What advantages would going private have, or disadvantages? Is there a party who wants to go faster into digital, one who wants to go slower? One who wants to downsize the brick and mortar locations, or one who want to keep expanding, possibly even buying Borders? Is there disagreement of the product mix, or pricing, or online strategy?

These are probably naive questions. It's probably all about stock price and manipulation of perception. A power struggle for control of a still profitable company.

But having some idea of the motivation for going private would help me know who to root for.

I had the same problem years ago with the fight for Marvel. It was hard to know who had the best interests of the company at heart, and who just wanted to plunder the company and strip it of its assets. (Well, we knew the owner of Marvel -- one Ron Perlman, of Revlon infamy -- who drove it into bankruptcy -- was pretty much a Pirate -- even Forbes Mag. called him that. Come on, how BAD do you have to be to have even Forbes call you a Pirate?)

I've maintained for some time that Barnes and Nobles is a ponzi scheme, like many other chainstores, dependent on constantly opening new stores and driving the stock price. They could control the price and publishing decisions of the publishers by their buying clout. The digital revolution has obviously called that strategy into question, as well as the downturn in the economy, and now there is even a question of downsizing, which I suspect would mean the slow death of the company.

It's interesting how quickly this whole thing has reached a nexus point. Big change, could mean big improvement, but could also open the door to big fat disaster. I tend to make small changes, over time, incrementally, in response to change -- but then, I don't have shareholders looking over my shoulder.

Barnes and Nobles has had to be aggressive in expanding to satisfy the ponzi returns.

But that whole theory is based on the public nature of the company. A private company, who doesn't have to keep reporting quarterly earnings to it's shareholders, could approach the future with a much more methodical and measured pace. I've never been sure if B & N is profitable without the ponzi nature of it's growth -- but I suspect the bookstore model is still viable, and managed well could still dominate the future of bookselling. Hmmm....do I really want that?

See what I mean? It may be petty of me, but keeping it public would -- I think -- inevitably cause the company to falter, especially with the "Sky is Falling!" perception of digital. Whereas private ownership could Shepard the changeover in private -- realizing that e-books are currently a very small percentage of profits even if growing spectacularly. Steady and measured growth, and/or downsizing, while moving full speed into the e-book world of the future would seem to me to be the way to go. (I personally believe the whole digital thing is going to spin out of control and take permutations that no one currently perceives and that it will be harder for these big companies to make big money off it than they're planning. Think Blockbuster.)

Of course, it may still end up being a public company but with a different mix of managers. Personally, much as I may dislike the monster he has created, I'd bet on Riggio caring more about where the company he created goes, than an outsider.

Then again -- it's most likely a power struggle.

What the heck. I hope they rip each other's throat out...