Liberty Media offer 1 billion for Barnes & Noble

NEW YORK- John Malone of Liberty Media Corp has proposed to buy & Barnes Noble Inc. 1.02 billion, nine months after that most chain bookstores U.S. himself put on sale.

Liberty Media offers $17 per share, a premium of 20.5% on Barnes & Noble of the closure of the shares Thursday, an agreement which would a foot in the industry growth of e-books dominated by Amazon.com Inc..

Noble & Barnes, who has faced years of decline of sales of the printed book itself put on sale last August saying its shares were dumped.

He invested in the development of his popular nook e-reader, launched in 2009, in a bid to remake itself as a digital bookseller and avoid the fate of rival borders Group Ltd., which filed for protection in bankruptcy in February.

Barnes & Noble, said Liberty Media offer has not yet been assessed by the Special Committee, and a spokesman refused to say whether another company has come forward with an offer.

In early March, an investment banker told Reuters that the auction process had slowed to a crawl.

"I would find $17 as point of departure - some investors would have closer to $20," Morningstar analyst Pete Wahlstrom told Reuters. He said stock Barnes & Noble is a value of $16.

Actions past 24.7% to $17.60 in the trade after hours after the announcement which suggests that investors believe that other offers may be coming or that Barnes & Noble shareholders will be more demanding.

KEEPING RIGGIO IN THE FOLD

Founder, President and top shareholder in the Barnes & Noble Leonard Riggio, last year, said that he considered taking the company private with partners. He is the owner of 29.7% of the shares.

Offer freedom is conditional to Riggio, keeping a participation in the Noble & Barnes, which he built a bookstore local to New York in a national chain in the 1970s, and is involved in the operation of the company remainedsaid Wahlstrom would be positive because of his knowledge of the sale of books.

Liberty Media pursues a strategy of recent years to align related to Active Media cheap in the hope of making outsized investment returns.

In February 2009, Malone uproot a participation of 40% of Sirius XM Radio by 530 million dollars of loans to the satellite radio company who was at the edge on the edge of bankruptcy. Malone has been rewarded in only a few months after Sirius turn around his company and the challenge today is more than 3.5 billion dollars.

Riggio, last September has survived a fight of proxy by the shareholder No. 2 of Barnes & Noble, investor Ron Burkle, who accused him of poor management of the company for the benefit of his family. Burkle, Yucaipa Companies, investment company is the owner of 18.7% of the shares.

If the agreement to spend $ 17 per share, Burkle would take a loss because he bought most of the shares in November 2009, when they were hovering near $20.

The Burkle spokesman does not immediately return a request for comments.

Barnes & Noble which operates 720 bookstores, as well as a string of college campus stores, in February suspended its dividend to save cash and to accumulate the corner to compete with Amazon Kindle and iPad of Apple Inc..

Barnes & Noble will present a new e-reader at a media event in New York on Wednesday. Forrester Research estimates that the corner is the second best-selling dedicated e-reader, after Kindle for Amazon.

Shares collapsed in February after Barnes & Noble suspended dividend and reported a loss of one quarter of holiday. They fall as low as $8.45 a month ago before rallying.

Lady Gaga swaps of music for the media, edits Metro paper (Reuters)

London (Reuters) - Flamboyant pop star Lady Gaga crashed music and switched to the media Monday with a passage as editor invited to the headquarters of the global network of free newspaper Metro London.

Widely regarded as the biggest pop star of the world, the 25 - year - old New Yorker has also been busy promoting his second studio album, "Born This Way" album which is available in stores on May 23.

Gaga arrived at the offices of the Metro porter pink hair in a style of the hive, black heels, low backrest and a bra-like black, top of the page.

"I am sorry if my costume of business is a little different" she joked as she shook hands with the staff.

Gaga has supported the drafting session in the morning, offering his opinion on a range of topics, bullying to the earthquake to the Japan who are her hero.

She immediately puts its vision for the paper as editor invited for the day, on topics that she already mentioned its mission as an entertainer.

"I feel so privileged that I get make music every day", she said of the staff. "If you revolutionary potential you have a moral obligation to make the world a better place."

His new record is the follow-up to his 2008 "The Fame" album, which will sell more than 12 million copies and topped the charts. A release of the extended play "the fame monster" was released the following year.

Gaga, whose real name is de Stefani Germanotta, has a huge and famous fans base spent around the world that she calls her "little monsters".

In turn, that she refers to herself as "Mother Monster", whose every public appearance is a piece of performance art and extravagant fashion rolled into one, turning on a cultural phenomenon as a musician.

"I appreciate the opportunity to really and it is a chance formidable to show me the whole world that the little monsters are not only a fan thing, but exist outside the world of music," Gaga says of its publishing in the underground activities.

Held most notorious Gaga to date have included a dress of raw meat that she wore last year at the MTV Video Music Awards, and his arrival at the Grammy Awards in February embedded in a giant egg.

"I live half my life between reality and the imagination at any time," the singer "Just dance" and "poker face" recently told the Guardian newspaper. "It is better not to ask questions and take advantage of all.".

It is not simply about enjoyment, and authors of music and commentators who have interviewed the singer note a messianic dimension to his ambition which seems to go beyond simply selling records.

His own biography Online concludes: "and, now, I'm simply trying to change flakes of a world at once," but with "a blink of eye in the eyes".

It is not all sails of plain for the winner of a prize, however.

The enormous impact of The Fame means that the pressure is on for born This Way correspond to the commercial and critical success.

Religious groups accuse them of blasphemy, there was dissent in the ranks of his legions of fans on the cover art for born This Way and she reacted angrily to suggestions that the first extract single of the new record has been copied from 1989 Madonna's "Express yourself".

(Reported by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)