Books a Million is going private. The Anderson family, who already own the majority of BAMM’s shares, have agreed to buy the rest at $3.25 per share—fifty cents over the offer of $2.75 the family made in January, and well over BAMM’s Monday close of $2.64. The total value of the deal would be $21 million. It still has to be approved by the majority of BAMM’s non-Anderson shareholders, but no problems are expected.

A quick glance at the five-year activity chart shows that Books a Million’s stock prices fell from a bit over $6 to around $2 in late 2011, and have been fluctuating between $2 and $3 ever since. Going private will at least remove stock market performance pressure, but it still remains to be seen how long the second-largest US bookstore chain will be able to continue.

If the mostly-owners think it’s worth $21 million to own the rest, maybe they see something others don’t. On the other hand, BAMM does have a market capitalization of $48.54 million. Who knows, maybe the Andersons are getting a bargain?

Books a Million sells e-books via a BAMM-branded version of the Nook e-reader.

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