Barnes & Noble Shares Slump After Profit Miss, Microsoft Pact Terminated

Barnes & Noble Inc. shares dropped 6% in premarket trading on Thursday after its fiscal second-quarter profit fell sharply below Wall Street expectations, and it said it was ending its commercial agreement with Microsoft . Profit in the quarter fell to $12.3 million, or 12 cents a share, from $13.2 million, or 15 cents, a year earlier. Wall Street was looking for profit of 31 cents a share, according to FactSet. Sales declined to $1.69 billion from $1.73 billion. That matched the FactSet consensus. For Fiscal 2015, the bookstore operator forecast comparable sales to decline in the low-single digits. The company said it's ending its commercial agreement with Microsoft, including any obligation for international content acquisition and sale. It also entered an agreement with Microsoft to buy the software company's entire preferred interest in Nook Media.