HE'S OUT

Barnes & Noble CEO Resigns

As Nook sales slump.

First Borders, now Barnes & Noble? William Lynch, the CEO of the retail giant, resigned on Monday, just days after the company reported that Nook sales were down 34 percent in the fourth quarter from the same period a year earlier. That alone counts for $118.6 million in losses—or double what they were the year before. Lynch had been instrumental in making the Nook a centerpiece of Barnes & Noble’s sales strategy, but the e-reader had failed to really compete with the Amazon Kindle. Last month, the company said that while it is still looking into making its own e-readers in-house, Microsoft, which owns 17 percent of the Nook business, would be buying it outright.