If Herb Greenberg's sources are good. This is not good news for Amazon:
Herb on TheStreet: *Special* Is Barnes & Noble
About to Buy Ingram Books?
By Herb Greenberg
Senior Columnist
11/4/98 3:07 PM ET
Here's one: What would you say if I told you that Barnes & Noble
(BKS:NYSE) is actively involved in negotiations to buy privately held
Ingram Books, the country's largest book distributor, which also happens
to supply Amazon.com (AMZN:Nasdaq) with the majority of its books?
One normally reliable source who is familiar with the situation but not an
insider says such a deal, priced at between $500 million to $700 million,
is imminent. If it does occur, Amazon would wind up buying many of its
books from, of all places, archrival Barnes & Noble.
In its 10-K, Amazon discloses that it also buys books from Baker & Taylor.
But Ingram is the single-largest supplier, accounting for 58% and 59% of
the company's inventory purchases in 1997 and 1996, respectively.
To avoid antitrust issues, according to this column's source, Barnes &
Noble through Ingram would continue supplying books to Amazon.
Such a deal, which this source says has been in the works in some form for
months, would be just the latest in the rapidly evolving and competitive
world of online bookselling. For months, Barnes & Noble has been trying
to close the gap between itself and Amazon with its own online book
operation. Bertelsmann recently paid $200 million for a 50% stake in
Barnesandnoble.com and, prior to that, was in talks to buy Amazon. In
fact, this column's source says Amazon did bid for part of Ingram not long
ago.
Ingram Books is part of Ingram Industries, a privately held company run
by the Ingram family. Ingram Micro (IM:NYSE), the electronics
distribution company, was part of the company until late 1996, when it
was spun off to the public.
A spokeswoman for Barnes & Noble hasn't yet returned my two calls,
though the company is expected to make a statement later today.
Officials of Ingram Books couldn't be reached. And I'm still waiting to hear
from the Amazon spokeswoman with a comment. |
