More on Borders and B&N

Tuesday's Wall Street Journal has an article on the change in management at Borders Group here.

Jeffrey Trachtenberg reported that Ron Marshall, the new CEO, started by making reassuring phone calls to publishers:

The shake-up at Borders, the nation's second-largest national bookstore chain, comes as book publishing and retailing are undergoing major changes, driven by readers who are buying more books online and, in some cases, switching to digital e-books.

Even so, the change in management at Borders helped the stock price while a major investment in Barnes and Noble, the #1 bookstore chain, helped to stabilize that stock. Publishers Lunch had this to say on Tuesday:

The stock of both Borders and Barnes & Noble rose significantly in yesterday's trading. BN was boosted by the disclosure of the big stake taken in the company's stock by activist investor Ron Burkle, after which genius Goldman Sachs Matthew Fassler upgraded his rating from sell to neutral. Borders rose following the news of the management shakeup, and has continued to climb this morning.

Burkle has purchased a 8.3% chunk of B&N.

Stay tuned for more . . .