Deadline Richard Schulze

Best Buy and founder Richard Schulze have ended talks whereby he and private equity investors were seeking three board seats in exchange for acquiring a minority stake in the consumer electronics giant, Bloomberg reported. Schulze wasn’t able to line up debt and equity financing, according to sources cited by the news service. Schulze’s attempt to arrange a smaller deal with Cerberus Capital Management, TPG Capital and Leonard Green & Partners also ended. Hopes a deal might be achieved had risen earlier this year after Best Buy posted better-than-expected holiday sales. With a stake of about 20% Schulze is the company’s biggest shareholder and had sought since last year to take over the company he founded more than 40 years ago. He resigned as chairman in June and new CEO Hubert Joly has since stabilized sales, closing some stores and improving e-commerce operations. Schulze might still come up with a last-ditch proposal but it seems unlikely. Best Buy reports Q4 earnings Friday.

The retailer’s stock is up 5% pre-market after it disclosed that sales in the nine weeks ending January 5 fell just 0.4% vs the same period last year to $12.8B. Revenues at stores open at least a year were down … Read More »

Richard Schulze wants to see Best Buy‘s holiday-season sales performance before he and his backers decide how to handle their potential bid for the consumer electronics chain. He and the company said today that they’ve extended … Read More »

The stock is up about 15% this morning after the Minneapolis-based company’s home town paper, the Star Tribune, reported that founder Richard Schulze will make “a fully financed offer” of as much as $6B for Best Buy ”by the … Read More »

Richard Schulze made the plea in a letter he sent today to the board. It seems to be part of a PR campaign to rally shareholder support for his effort to take the consumer electronics chain private — in the hope that investors will pressure the board to cooperate with him. “I am deeply concerned about the direction of the company and, as Best Buy’s largest shareholder, I cannot simply stand aside,” he says. Last week Schulze, who controls 20.1% of the equity, said he was prepared to offer as much as $26 a share for the company, roughly $8.8B. (It closed yesterday at $19.36.) Schulze says today that the board dismissed his offer as a “highly conditional indication of interest” and hasn’t allowed him to form a group of private equity firms and lenders that could look at the books to solidify their offer. “I still hope to work with the Board on a mutually beneficial transaction – but you should know that I am not going away,” Schulze writes. “All I am asking is your permission to conduct due diligence and form a group so that I can quickly be in a position to give the Board a fully financed offer for your consideration.” Best Buy is incorporated in Minnesota, and the laws there make it virtually impossible for someone to acquire a company if the board opposes it. Read More »

The stock price tells the basic story. If investors believed that Best Buy founder Richard Schulze was likely to succeed with the plan he unveiled yesterday then the company’s shares would be trading close to his proposed offer of as much as $26 a share. Instead they’ve settled in at about $19.90. One reason for the doubt: Best Buy is incorporated in Minnesota which sets an unusually high bar for hostile takeovers. Acquirers who don’t have board approval must own their stock in a target company for at least four years — and then win the support of owners of 80% of the voting shares. That’s too high a threshold even for Schulze, who controls 20.1% of Best Buy’s voting shares. And the conventional wisdom is that the board likely won’t support his offer. At the very least they’d want a higher bid, perhaps more than $30 a share, Jefferies Equity Research analyst Daniel Binder says in a report today. Directors Read More »

The company’s stock is up about 19% to around $21 in early trading following the disclosure of the offer from Richard Schulze. In a letter today to board Chairman Hatim Tyabji, Schulze said that his adviser, Credit Suisse, is “highly confident that it can arrange the necessary debt financing” to pay as much as $26 a share for Best Buy — 47% more than its closing price on Friday. “I believe there is an urgent need for Best Buy to reinvigorate growth by reconnecting with today’s customers and building pathways to the next generation of consumers,” the letter says. His proposed acquisition “would allow Best Buy to take the actions that it needs to take outside of the public sphere.” Schulze is by far the largest shareholder, with 20.1% of Best Buy’s shares. He resigned from the board in June, upending a face-saving arrangement reached in May after the Audit Committee said in a report that Schulze helped to cover up former CEO Brian Dunn’s “inappropriate relationship” with a female employee.

Here’s Schulze’s letter: Read More »

There has to be a fascinating back story to the Best Buy soap opera. In the latest twist, Best Buy says that company founder Richard Schulze told directors this morning that he would “resign from the board, including the chairmanship, effective immediately.” The head of the board’s Audit Committee, Hatim Tyabji, was named the new chairman. Schultze said in a separate statement that he made his decision “in order to explore all available options for my ownership stake.” He’s by far the largest shareholder, with 20.1% of Best Buy’s shares. The announcement upends a face-saving arrangement reached last month after the Audit Committee said in a report that Schulze helped to cover up former CEO Brian Dunn’s “inappropriate relationship” with a female employee. The multi-billionaire agreed to remain on the board as chairman until the June 21 annual meeting when Tyabji would take the gavel. Schulze then would stay to the end of his term next year with an honorary title of Founder and Chairman Emeritus. It was a humiliating come-down for Read More »

Richard Schulze will remain on the board to the end of his term next year but will just have an honorary title at the consumer electronics retail chain after the board’s Audit Committee said in a report that he helped to cover up former CEO Brian Dunn’s “inappropriate relationship” with a female employee. That’s a big come-down for Schulze, who became a multi-billionaire by turning his Sound Of Music Store founded in St. Paul in 1966 into one of the country’s largest sellers of consumer electronics and entertainment. The report says Schulze found out about Dunn’s relationship in late 2011 but kept it to himself after the CEO “adamantly denied” any impropriety. The board first learned of the relationship in March. Dunn resigned last month. He was paid $6.6M as part of his separation agreement. In addition to the changes at the top, Best Buy says it will now support annual election of all board members — a change favored by corporate governance activists. Best Buy shares are down 17% so far in 2012 as the chain struggles to keep up with competition from online retailers led by Amazon. Here’s Best Buy’s announcement:

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