This year’s Barnes & Noble annual meeting should be a much quieter affair than last fall’s special shareholders meeting in which chairman Len Riggio defeated an effort by Ron Burkle to elect a separate slate of officers, but therr will nonetheless br a bit of a changing of the guard aspect. William Lynch, CEO of the company, has been nominated to the board for the first time along with George Campbell who is up for re-election. Not standing for re-election are Steve Riggio, who has been a director since 1993 and remains vice chairman, and Margaret Monaco, a director since 1995. Two additional directors nominated by Liberty Media will also be voted on at a later date when the Hart-Scott-Radino waiting period expires clearing the way for Liberty's investment in B&N.
Liberty’s’ $204 million investment will give it 12 million common shares, just more than Burkle’s 11,894,213 shares. Len Riggio owns 17,900,132 shares, according to B&N’s recently-released proxy.
The proxy also includes salaries and bonuses for the retailer’s top executives with Lynch taking home $900,000 in base pay plus $675,000 in bonuses. CFO Joseph Lombardi had a salary of $750,000 and earned $1,125,000 in bonuses, while Mitchell Klipper, CEO of B&N Retail Group had a $900,000 salary and a $675,000 bonus.
The B&N annual meeting is set for October 28.
