Microsoft looking to buy Barnes & Noble Nook business
Microsoft may be looking to bolster their tablet business by buying out the Nook line of slates and eReaders, in an attempt to rival Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iBooks offerings.
According to TechCrunch, Microsoft are looking to double down on the £200 million that they’ve already invested in the Nook tablets, aiming to buy the company out outright. Microsoft already have a 16.8% stake in the company.
The report claims that Microsoft are looking to spend £640 million to acquire the digital assets of Nook Media LLC, the separate Nook spin-off company that spread out from Barnes & Noble last year.
“In this plan, Microsoft would redeem preferred units in Nook Media, which also includes a college textbook division, leaving it with the digital operation — e-books, as well as Nook e-readers and tablets,” reads the report.
Though Nook devices would live on, internal documents show that the Android arm of the business is set to be discontinued by 2014 in favour of a “third party partner”. The obvious partner here then would be Microsoft with a Windows-based Nook, a theory that would be certainly strengthened were Microsoft to complete the buyout of the company.
