MAIN NEWS HEADLINES

June 15-30, 2004 Edition

Barnes & Noble

Finalizes Acquisition

of B&N.com

NEW YORK, NY/06/03/04—Barnes & Noble.com shareholders called a special meeting June 3 to ratify the sale of the e-tailer to Barnes & Noble—the last step in a long acquisition process by the brick and mortar bookselling chain. B&N originally offered $2.50 per share to buy the company last November, but in January the company increased its offer to $3.05 per share after some shareholders filed lawsuits charging the offer was too low. B&N had originally paid $2.80 per share to Bertelsmann acquire the British conglomerate’s share in the dot com.

BN.com was founded in 1997 by Barnes & Noble, but was spun off as a separate company in a 1999 public offering that brought B&N $421 million in revenue.