Ron Burkle's made a major blunder with his recent Barnes & Noble investment, says the New York Post. According to a regulatory filing, the billionaire investor dropped $11 million on 603,000 shares of Barnes & Noble this week, at an average cost of $18.49 each—completely missing out on last week’s 30 percent surge in the company's stock price following a buyout offer from Liberty Media’s John Malone, which valued the company at more than $1 billion.
“It's pathetic that Burkle, who was one of Barnes & Noble's biggest shareholders for the past two years, needs to be taught by John Malone that there's value in the stock,” one of the bookseller’s investors told the Post. Malone seems to think that Barnes & Noble shares were undervalued, pointing to his successful past investment of the similarly undervalued Sirius XM as the foundation of his newest buyout offer.
Malone also believes that the Nook e-reader will prove highly profitable for the company, whereas last year Burkle argued that Barnes & Noble should cut back on the funds it was putting into development of the Nook and put the company up for auction. The chain’s founder Len Riggio eventually agreed to sell, but Burkle never made a bid.
