Barnes & Noble has named its president, Michael P. Huseby, as the company's new chief executive officer and a member of the board. The executive will lead the retail, college and Nook Media operations at Barnes & Noble according to a press release on the matter issued earlier today.
The appointment fills a spot that has been vacant since July 2013 when then-CEO William Lynch resigned. Lynch was appointed CEO in 2010 and was instrumental in launching the Nook. No reason was given for his exit although most suspect it likely had something to do with the company's decision to stop producing Nook tablets.
Huseby joined Barnes & Noble in March 2012 as chief financial officer and was promoted to president and interim CEO when Lynch vacated the position last summer. He previously served as vice president and CFO at Cablevision Systems Corp. during his career in the cable industry and was also a global equity partner at Arthur Andersen.
In its most recent quarterly earnings report, the company said that sales dropped 8 percent to $1.7 billion while the Nook division reported sales that were down 32 percent to just $109 million.
The store business, as noted by Maxim Group analyst John Tinker, is still extremely profitable. He described it as a melting iceberg that's so far been melting very slowly. That's good news for Barnes & Noble but with increasing competition from Apple and Amazon, they're still fighting an uphill battle.