Barnes & Noble Education CEO on IPO: we have opportunity to do M&A

Barnes & Noble Education (BNED) is now trading on its own after officially spinning-off from Barnes & Noble (BKS). The company celebrated its IPO by ringing the opening bell on the New York Stock Exchange (ICE).

Barnes & Noble Education CEO, Max Roberts said the stock offers investors an opportunity to get in on a growth story. “We’re increasing comp sales, we have over $90 million of new business, 52% of schools still operate their own bookstores and we have the opportunity to do mergers and acquisitions,” said Roberts.

The business currently has 724 stores on college campuses and sells both traditional textbooks and digital educational content. Roberts isn’t discouraged by the textbook business not being as profitable as it was decades ago before the internet and the ‘sharing economy’ trend. He confident that Barnes & Noble Education is prepared with “85% of students’ textbooks on an individual campus...available to rent.”

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“We’re positioned both digitally and also on an in-store basis,” Roberts said. The company sees “significant market opportunity” from the $170 billion it found Millennials to have in annual purchasing power. Some of that ‘purchasing power’ comes from student loans, which many young Americans are burdened with after graduation. The average borrower in the class of 2013, had more than $28,000 in student debt, according to The Institute for College Access & Success. This amount has gone up for each proceeding class and is only expected to go higher.

Roberts is aware of the rising cost of higher education in America. “Our mission is to provide students a very affordable method of obtaining course materials both digitally and also [with] physical books,” he said.