Investor urges Borders bid for Barnes & Noble

Activist investor William Ackman and his investment firm announced in a regulatory filing Monday that they had offered to finance a $963 million bid by Borders Group to buy its smaller rival Barnes & Noble

If executed, such a deal would join the two largest traditional book sellers, which are facing increasingly tough competition from bigger merchants online and in stores, including Amazon.com, Target and Wal-Mart Stores.

Under the deal, Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management would sponsor an offer by Borders of $16 per share for more than 60 million outstanding Barnes & Noble shares.

Barnes & Noble launched its reader, the Nook, last year and has invested heavily in its electronic bookstore. Borders sells readers and e-books through a partnership with Kobo. The financing from Ackman, who owns 37 percent of Borders' shares, would let Borders make a "quantum leap" in the e-book space, Morningstar analyst Peter Wahlstrom said.

Barnes & Noble shares rose 10.6 percent, or $1.41, to close at $14.69.

A Borders spokeswoman said the company welcomes Ackman's "participation." Barnes & Noble had no comment.

- Associated Press

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Sprint to phase out Nextel network by 2015

Sprint Nextel said Monday it will start phasing out the Nextel part of its network in 2013, a decision that follows near-constant subscriber losses since Sprint bought Nextel in 2005.

The shutdown should be complete in 2015. Sprint, the country's third-largest wireless carrier, had said it would eventually shut down the aging Nextel network, but hadn't said when until Monday.

Nextel's signature feature is its fast push-to-talk function, which resembles a walkie-talkie. However, its network doesn't support fast data transfers, making it unsuitable for smartphones. Sprint plans to offer Nextel subscribers a push-to-talk function on the Sprint network instead.

Sprint paid $36 billion for Nextel in one of the worst corporate deals ever. Subscribers started fleeing soon after the deal closed because of poor customer support and network performance, leaving Sprint to write down 80 percent of the purchase price just three years later.