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Yucaipa Files Appeal In Barnes & Noble Poison Pill Case - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - Thursday, the Yucaipa Companies announced that it filed its notice of appeal from the decision by the Delaware Court of Chancery dismissing Yucaipa's challenge to Barnes & Noble, Inc.'s (BKS) poison pill rights plan.

Yucaipa filed its notice of appeal following the Court of Chancery's denial of Yucaipa's motion to set aside its prior decision in light of Barnes & Noble Chairman Leonard Riggio's acquisition of an additional 990,740 shares by exercising out of the money options just prior to the record date for the September 28, 2010 Annual Meeting.

The Court conditioned its denial of Yucaipa's motion on the representation that "Mr. Riggio will not vote the options that he exercised in the upcoming annual meeting, and that he will not exercise any other options or in any other way try to obtain additional voting power to be used at the annual meeting" and required that those representations be included in a judicial order.

Barnes & Noble stockholders will have the opportunity at the September 28 annual stockholder meeting to vote on Yucaipa's proposal to amend the Board approved poison pill rights plan to eliminate the special treatment for Leonard Riggio and his family and to vote to elect Yucaipa's slate of three new independent director nominees.

BKS is currently trading at $15.92, up $0.29 or 1.86%, on a volume of 850 thousand shares on the NYSE.