Departure of Barnes & Noble chief may put focus on retail

The sudden resignation of Barnes & Noble’s chief executive could indicate the struggling bookseller is closer to breaking up and returning to basics: bookstores.

William Lynch, who became boss in 2010 to take on Amazon.com in the e-books wars, quit on Monday just two weeks after the company reported a 34 per cent drop in revenue in its Nook business, a venture he spearheaded that has cost Barnes & Noble hundreds of millions of dollars. His departure was somewhat of a surprise to investors because he signed a two-year contract renewal in March.

The company is not looking for a replacement for Lynch and instead named finance chief Michael Huseby to be the chief executive of its Nook Media division, which it created last year as a potential spin off. The chief executive of Barnes & Noble Retail, Mitch Klipper, and Huseby will both report to Leonard Riggio, who built the chain and owns 30 per cent of its shares.

“With no plans to hire a CEO in the near term and Len Riggio once again in control, this management restructuring could bring the company closer to a more formal break up,” Janney Capital Markets analyst David Strasser wrote in a note to clients.

Barnes & Nobel did not respond to a request for comment.

The management shakeup puts Riggio, who said in February he wanted to buy the company’s 680 bookstores, in the driver’s seat. It also deepens the separation between its main book store business and its digital business, which the company had long touted as complementary.