Barnes & Noble Announces Partnership with Bahwan CyberTek (BCT) to Outsource Certain NOOK® Technology Functions

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Barnes & Noble, Inc. BKS ("Barnes & Noble" or the "Company"), the nation's largest retail bookseller and a leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, today announced that it has entered into an agreement with Bahwan CyberTek ("BCT"), a global software products and services company, in which BCT will take over certain NOOK technology services, including cloud management and development support for NOOK software. The Company also reiterated its commitment to the NOOK business and said it will continue to provide an exceptional NOOK reading experience without customer interruption.

Barnes & Noble said that as a result of the agreement with BCT, it plans to close both its Santa Clara, California and Taiwan offices. The business will be transitioned and the offices will be closed by July 2016.

"Over the last two years, the Company has done a significant amount of work to improve NOOK's overall performance," said Fred Argir, Chief Digital Officer at Barnes & Noble. "While we have been able to reduce costs, we still have a lot more work to do to rationalize the business. We believe that by outsourcing certain technology functions of our NOOK business we will further improve NOOK's performance."

This transition is expected to result in annualized cash savings of approximately $13 million, which includes approximately $8 million of expense reductions and approximately $5 million of capital expenditure reductions. In the first quarter of fiscal 2017, the company expects to record severance charges and transition related costs of approximately $6 million.

About Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. BKS is a Fortune 500 company, the nation's largest retail bookseller, and a leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products. The Company operates 640 Barnes & Noble bookstores in 50 states, and one of the Web's premier e-commerce sites, BN.com (www.bn.com). The Nook Digital business offers a lineup of popular NOOK^® tablets and eReaders and an expansive collection of digital reading and entertainment content through the NOOK Store^®. The NOOK Store features more than 4 million digital books in the US (www.nook.com), plus periodicals and comics, and offers the ability to enjoy content across a wide array of popular devices through Free NOOK Reading Apps^™ available for Android^™, iOS^® and Windows^®.

General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained by visiting the Company's corporate website at www.barnesandnobleinc.com.

Barnes & Noble^®, Barnes & Noble Booksellers^® and Barnes & Noble.com^® are trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc. or its affiliates. NOOK^® and the NOOK logos are trademarks of Nook Digital, LLC or its affiliates.

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About Bahwan CyberTek

Bahwan CyberTek (BCT) was established in 1999 by Ms. Hind Bahwan, Director of Multi-billion dollar Suhail Bahwan Group, and Mr. S. Durgaprasad, Co-Founder, Director and CEO of Bahwan CyberTek Group.

BCT is a global provider of innovative software products and services and is one of the first 50 companies worldwide to be assessed at CMMi Level-5 Ver 1.3. Today, BCT is a USD 230+ Million organization with over 550+ customers including fortune 500 companies and 2200+ business and technology professionals. BCT has delivered solutions in twenty countries across North America, Middle East, Far East, Africa and Asia.

BCT's associates have extensive industry knowledge and expertise in leading technologies and form a dynamic organization focused on technology innovation. Their technical skills and knowledge, combined with the immense opportunities to foster innovation, pave the way for excellence in IP creation and service delivery.

BCT core areas of expertise include predictive analytics, Oil & Gas Logistics, Track & Trace, Smart Government, Payments, SMAC and IoT. Through its IP brand Cuecent, BCT provides a suite of products such as RETINA, CueTrans, IVMS and PULSE, that combines Cuecent Platform and emerging technologies to provide both horizontal and vertical capabilities for verticals such as Oil & Gas, Power, Banking, Government, Logistics and Manufacturing.

BCT also offers comprehensive services through its partnerships with Oracle, SAP, Microsoft and IBM. BCT also offers services in the Education, Risk and Compliance Management, Application Development and Maintenance, Infrastructure Management and independent Testing areas. For more information, visit http://www.bahwancybertek.com/usa.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements (within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended) and information relating to Barnes & Noble that are based on the beliefs of the management of Barnes & Noble as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to the management of Barnes & Noble. When used in this communication, the words "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "plan," "will," "forecasts," "projections," and similar expressions, as they relate to Barnes & Noble or the management of Barnes & Noble, identify forward-looking statements.

Such statements reflect the current views of Barnes & Noble with respect to future events, the outcome of which is subject to certain risks, including, among others, risks associated with the timing and implementation of the transition to BCT, higher-than-anticipated costs, including with respect to the transition, occupancy expenses and severance and termination related costs, risks associated with the Santa Clara and Taiwan office closings, the risk that financial and operational forecasts and projections are not achieved, and other factors, including those factors discussed in detail in Item 1A, "Risk Factors," in Barnes & Noble's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended May 2, 2015, and in Barnes & Noble's other filings made hereafter from time to time with the SEC.

Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results or outcomes may vary materially from those described as anticipated, believed, estimated, expected, intended or planned. Subsequent written and oral forward-looking statements attributable to Barnes & Noble or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements in this paragraph. Barnes & Noble undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise after the date of this communication.

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