British publisher invests in Barnes & Noble's Nook
BY Wire reports
Saturday, December 29, 2012
12/29/12 at 5:52 AM
Pearson, the U.K. publisher and education company, is taking a 5 percent stake in Barnes & Noble's Nook e-reader as technology companies seek new inroads into the potentially lucrative business of digital textbooks for schools.
Pearson PLC will pay $89.5 million cash for a 5 percent stake in Nook Media LLC, which includes the bookseller's e-reader and tablets, its digital bookstore and its 674 stores serving U.S. colleges. Barnes & Noble Inc. will hold 78.2 percent of the business and Microsoft Corp. will have about 16.8 percent, the company said Friday.
Major tech companies have looked for inroads into the industry, seeing tablets like the iPad and the Nook as replacements for the dozens of books that students must lug to and from school each day.
Janney Capital Markets described the tie-up between Pearson and Barnes & Noble as an ''online education dream team."
"After this investment from Pearson, it is more clear that Nook Media has its sight set on transforming the way education is administered in the U.S. and around the world," analyst David Strasser wrote.
