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To save anyone the trouble, the book value (no pun intended) is only $474 million. You'd think the inventory alone would would be work more than the average $67

• thomas93 7y ago
  Can you expand on what the implication of your comment is? Book value on the balance sheet is ~$474 million, but that doesn't seem particularly meaningful in a valuation context for the business (especially considering the ~$1,123 million they are carrying for treasury stock). As for inventory, they have that carried on their books for ~$1,000 million, which also means very little without a broader context on the state of the business.
• Turing_Machine 7y ago
  Most of the books in a major bookstore like B&N are returnable. They're not actually owned by the bookstore (at least not permanently, and not outright). If the book doesn't sell within a specified period of time, the publisher will take it back. Hardcovers are generally returned intact. Paperbacks and magazines often just require that the retailer tear off the cover and return that, while destroying (at least in theory) the rest of the book. That's why you sometimes see that warning in the front of paperback books and magazines about not buying it if its cover has been removed... unscrupulous retailers will sometimes strip the cover, return it for credit, then sell the stripped book on the black market.