Indigo considers offer to take chain private

In Canada, the board of the Indigo Books & Music bookselling chain, headed by former Penguin Random House CEO Markus Dohle, has established a special committee of independent directors to evaluate a proposal to take the chain private, reported Publishers Weekly.

Two investment firms—Trilogy Retail Holdings Inc. and Trilogy Investments LP—controlled by Canadian billionaire Gerald Schwartz, an Indigo board member and husband of Indigo founder and CEO Heather Reisman, have offered to acquire all the common shares of Indigo that Trilogy does not already own for C$2.25 (A$2.56) in cash per share. (Indigo’s shares closed last week at C$1.48 [A$1.68] per share, and have been trading at between C$1.04 [A$1.18] and C$2.60 [A$2.95] per share over the last year.) The Trilogy firms already own 60.6% of Indigo’s shares.

In its statement, Indigo said the special committee would evaluate the proposal ‘and any viable alternatives that may be available to the company’, and would appoint an outside firm to evaluate the offer. A timeline for the evaluation has not been announced.

As previously reported by Books+Publishing, the Indigo chain reported a 12% drop in revenue for the quarter ending 1 July 2023, following a cyberattack on the company’s website in February.

Category: International news