Best Buy analyst meeting canceled due to East Coast storm

Best Busy Co Inc on Tuesday canceled an analyst meeting it had planned to hold in New York this week as the city tries to recover from the massive storm Sandy, postponing Chief Executive Hubert Joly's opportunity to tell investors how he plans to turn the company around.

No new date has been set for the meeting, which had been scheduled for Thursday, spokeswoman Amy von Walter said.

"We are very much looking forward to getting in front of the investment community to share Hubert's situational assessment and strategy going forward," von Walter said. "That being said, our concerns first and foremost are for the safety of those on the East Coast, as well as our own employees - given the unfolding situation in NYC, we felt it was best to postpone."

The consumer electronics retailer scheduled the meeting only last week when it also warned third-quarter earnings and same-store sales would fall, and said its U.S. business president would exit at the end of the current fiscal year as part of a management restructuring.

Joly was named CEO in August at the company, which is grappling with the rising trend of shoppers treating its stores like showrooms for cheaper online retailers.

The company is also waiting for its founder, its former chairman and largest shareholder Richard Schulze, to decide whether he can put together a buyout bid.

Schulze, who is trying to take the company private, is expected to make his next move in mid- to late November. That move could be in the form of a formal bid along with other private equity partners or a request for more time to prepare a formal bid, a source close to the matter said last week.

(Reporting By Brad Dorfman; Editing by Chris Gallagher)