Barnes & Noble Buys Back The Nook It Sold

This week the folks at Barnes & Noble announced that they'd be buying back the shares of Nook they'd sold over the past several years. This began with an October 2012 investment by Microsoft of $300 million dollars to create Nook Media LLC. Two months later, British education and publishing company Pearson purchased a stake in Nook for $89.5 million. Both companies have now sold their shares back to Barnes & Noble, and Barnes & Noble once again owns 100% of the ereader brand they created in the first place.

Nook worth has decreased significantly over the past couple of years. Barnes & Noble re-purchased their shares in Nook from Microsoft earlier this month for around $120 million USD.

The Nook repurchase from Pearson cost Barnes & Noble a cool $13.75 million in cash and Barnes & Noble common stock. Pearson will own 602,927 shares of Barnes & Noble common stock should the deal be completed.

Barnes & Noble have made clear that they'll be splitting off Nook once again in the near future. One part of Barnes & Noble will consist of Nook and the company's college bookstores. The rest – the other part – will consist of Barnes & Noble retail stores and Barnes & Noble dot com.

In the Form 8-K for this deal, Barnes & Noble suggests that this deal will "strengthen the Company's balance sheet through the elimination of Pearson's preference rights in exchange for the consideration described above and further simplify the corporate structure by giving the Company ownership (through its subsidiaries) of 100% of NOOK Media."