Citing people familiar with the situation, The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that Barnes & Noble is not interested in making a bid for Borders, which put itself up for sale in the spring. Rumors that B&N was going to acquire the ankle-biting second-largest-bookstore-chain-in-the-country freaked out everyone in publishing for a minute there, since a merger would almost certainly mean a lot of Borders stores would close and there would thus be way fewer places to sell books.
According to The Wall Street Journal‘s Jeffrey A. Trachntenberg and Matthew Karnitschnig, this might not be the end of the story since:
To be sure, Barnes & Noble could change tactics and return with a bid, but it would have to act quickly. Borders hopes to complete the auction by the end of September, according to a person close to the company. At its current trading price, Borders has a market capitalization of only $344 million, and as it’s a cash-flow business, it could be expected to attract some interest from private-equity shoppers.
‘The process continues—we continue to evaluate our alternatives,’ said a spokeswoman for Borders, based in Ann Arbor, Mich.
