Barnes & Noble fires CEO, cites policy breach
Barnes & Noble Inc. fired Chief Executive Officer Demos Parneros for violating company policies and said he’ll exit the post without severance.
A spokesman declined to say why he’d been terminated. It was “not due to any disagreement with the company regarding its financial reporting, policies or practices or any potential fraud,” the company said in a statement Tuesday.
The book seller will begin a search for a new CEO. In the meantime, it has appointed a leadership group to share the role’s duties until a new leader is named, including Chief Financial Officer Allen Lindstrom, Chief Merchandising Officer Tim Mantel, and Carl Hauch, vice president of stores. Leonard Riggio remains executive chairman.
Parneros just wrapped up his first year as CEO this spring. Since he took the helm in April 2017, the stock had fallen more than 30 percent through Tuesday’s close and hit its lowest point in about a quarter century in March amid heightened competition from the likes of Amazon.com Inc. Parneros said on the company’s earnings call in June that “turnaround plans take time.”
Under his leadership, the company continued to flail, posting a 5.4 percent drop in same-store sales in the past fiscal year. Parneros originally backed off his predecessors’ quests to boost revenue through sales of gifts and nonbook merchandise, then last month said Barnes & Noble would make a renewed effort in toys and games after the shutdown of Toys R Us.
Parneros was Barnes & Nobles’ fifth CEO in less than a decade.
High-level executives at a slew of consumer companies have been ousted in recent months amid allegations of improper conduct, including leaders at Nike Inc., Lululemon Athletica Inc., Guess Inc. and Tapestry Inc.’s Stuart Weitzman.
Barnes & Noble said the board chose to terminate Parneros under advisement by the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, without specifying what prompted the action.
Before becoming CEO, Parneros had been chief operating officer since November 2016. Before joining the book seller, he held several leadership roles at office-supplies giant Staples Inc.