Bookseller’s Q1 anything but Noble

Barnes & Noble said that it’s in the process of “healing and fixing,” whereas its investors clearly want it out there selling.

Investors disappointed in a 6.1 percent same-store sales decline for its first quarter — announced before Thursday’s market open — sent B&N shares down 8.1 percent, to close at $4.55 per share.

The plunge widened the year-to-date stock loss to 26 percent as the country’s largest bookseller admitted during the earnings call that it will delay dealing with leadership issues.

“Right now, we’re not looking,” Chairman Len Riggio said when asked about replacing Demos Parneros, whom B&N fired as CEO in July on unspecified “violations of the company’s policies.”

Parneros, who was B&N’s fourth CEO in five years, responded to his ouster last week in a Manhattan federal suit that claims his severance-denying termination came “without warning or justification.”

Riggio dismissed the suit during the call as “a smokescreen” to extort the company.

The search for a new CEO will begin after B&N’s annual meeting on Oct. 3, said Riggio, adding that “there’s no shortage of people who are applying for the job.”

Whoever gets it will take on a struggling enterprise with sales of $795 million for quarter ended July 28, a 6.9 percent decline from year ago levels, and an earnings per share loss of 23 cents, compared to a 15 cent loss a year ago.

On the bright side, Riggio said samestores sales “sequentially improved” in recent months and continue to do so.