A Big Apple investor angling to buy Barnes & Noble may have more enthusiasm than money.
G Asset Management, a little-known financial firm, said Friday it wants to buy the struggling bookstore chain in a deal that would value it at upward of $1.3 billion, or $22 a share.
B&N’s beaten-down stock, however, rose only 5.4 percent, to close at $17.69, indicating that Wall Street isn’t counting on a deal getting done.
It didn’t help that G Asset Management admitted that it hasn’t yet lined up financing for a transaction, and said it’s looking to buy just 51 percent of B&N’s shares, cutting its proposed cash outlay to less than $675 million.
In addition, G Asset, run by Michael Glickstein, said it was willing to cut a deal to buy the Nook only for $5 a share if B&N wasn’t interested in selling the whole company.
Indeed, Glickstein and other investors have been struggling without much success to put together a B&N acquisition for more than a year, sources said.
Glickstein, who had surfaced in November with a $20-a-share Úoffer for B&N, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“I don’t think the capital raise is going well,” one insider said of Glickstein’s efforts.
In February 2012, Glickstein disclosed a 5-percent B&N stake that he acquired for just $1.6 million by using stock options.
While Glickman said he sees “substantial shareholder value” in a prospective breakup of the company, other investors fret that B&N’s business “remains unstable,” according to the source.
Wall Street remains skittish about B&N’s prospects after a buyout bid by founder and chairman Len Riggio went bust last year.
The retailer’s stores are still profitable, but its failing Nook e-reader is hemorrhaging cash as it has been hammered by competition from Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iPad.
This month, B&N said it will lay off workers as the Nook’s sales continue to dwindle.
Last month, it said holiday sales plunged 61 percent, to $125 million, as it slashed prices in a desperate bid to prop up demand.
“We do not know how secure the financing is for [G Asset Management’s offer] or how real the offer is at this time,” David Strasser, an analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott, said in a research note.
A B&N spokeswoman confirmed Glickstein’s firm had made a takeover offer, declining to comment further.