Shares of Barnes & Noble soared 24 percent after it was reported Thursday that Microsoft is considering a bid for the retailer’s Nook e-book business. 

Microsoft is reportedly offering $1 billion for the Nook brand and the digital assets of Nook Media on top of their $300 million investment last year to develop Nook content for Windows 8 tablets. "Our complementary assets will accelerate e-reading innovation across a broad range of Windows devices, enabling people to not just read stories, but to be part of them,” said Microsoft president Andy Lees at the time. "We're on the cusp of a revolution in reading." 

But the revolution stalled as the Android-based Nook has been a money-loser for B&N, not helping America's biggest bookseller compete against Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader.Continue reading...

Apparently tired of just prodding its unresponsive soup business into a turnaround, Campbell Soup made a big diversification move Monday by agreeing to acquire Bolthouse Farms for $1.55 billion. Bolthouse began in 1915 as a big carrot farm run by William Bolthouse near Bakersfield, Calif., and has scored a number of successes over the last few years in the better-for-you food, beverage and snack space — not to mention trying to put baby carrots top of mind.

By purchasing the Bolthouse brand from a private equity firm, Madison Dearborn Partners, Campbell gains a premium beverage business to complement its growing portfolio of V8 beverages as well as a fresh-carrot business that Campbell believes could be a healthy-snacking opportunity.

In addition to its implications for Campbell, the move also represents a further homogenization of America's biggest consumer-packaged-goods conglomerates, making Campbell look a little more like Kraft, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola as they all diversify strategically into more better-for-you categories.Continue reading...

A few of America’s biggest shoe brands owned by the same company will be going their separate ways soon. A purchase price of $2 billion works wonders to make those kinds of things happen. Collective Brands Inc., which owns such footwear brands as Sperry Top-Sider and Keds as well as discount shoe retailer Payless ShoeSource, has agreed to be sold for $2 billion and divided into two companies.

As the Chicago Tribune reports, Collective will be a collective no more, with its brands divided between Wolverine Worldwide, Blum Capital and Golden Gate Capital, which all have a tough financial road ahead for these brands.Continue reading...

The scoop by the New York Times that Groupon's IPO appears to be back on track puts the boom in branded daily deals back in the spotlight.

With Google, Amazon and other web giants muscling into their spice, sites like Groupon and LivingSocial are disintermediating the e-commerce industry with discounting as high as 60% — not to mention filling our email inboxes with a flood of local deals.

Participating in such offers can be costly for merchants, who reportedly fork over about 50% of sales revenue back to Groupon, banking on the reward of repeat business from new customers accruing long term growth.

As the daddy of daily deals ascends the slippery slope of an IPO, a new academic study has unearthed a controversial and ironic twist for daily deals site Groupon: being one of their deals has a negative effect on brand reputation as measured by Yelp’s metrics.Continue reading...