Riggio Wants to Split Book from Nook

Leonard Riggio, chairman of Barnes & Noble Inc. (New York), has indicated a plan to acquire the company’s 689 remaining stores and take them private as a way of preserving them.

Riggio’s plan, disclosed in a securities filing, would separate the Barnes & Noble retail arm from Nook Media, the company’s e-book division. After a 10.9 percent decline in holiday sales, the company said it planned to close about 15 unprofitable stores a year.

Analysts estimated the estimates of the division’s worth on Monday ranged from $484.5 million to more than $1 billion.

While Barnes & Noble has weighed the possibility of selling the Nook division before, few appetizing options have materialized. But James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research, said the company had little ability to command a top-drawer price. “Making a bet on bookstores now, when we don’t know what the ultimate footprint of those stores will be, will require getting a really great price,” he said.

A person close to the company told The New York Times that Barnes & Noble would be hard pressed to accept anything short of $1 billion.