After in April 2012, Microsoft and Barnes & Noble unveiled a strategic partnership that involved an investment of $300 million in a separate digital Nook business, money paid by Microsoft, now, Barnes&Noble gets the 17.6% stake bought by Microsoft back through another sale.
Barnes&Noble managed to buy this stake back for $62 million and 2.7 million Barnes&Noble shares. As we can notice, this partnership was a big loss for Microsoft. According to a company spokesperson, the decision to sold this stake was made as the respective business strategies of each company evolved, and both companies agreed that it made sense to terminate the agreement.
Even if during this partnership, a Nook Windows 8 reading app was launched, Microsoft didn’t managed to launch any e-readers devices on the market.
