The story
Books-A-Million was founded in 1917 in Florence, Alabama, as a newsstand by 14-year old Clyde W. Anderson, who dropped out of school to support his family after his father died. Anderson saw a business opportunity after workers on the nearby Wilson Dam complained that they could not get their hometown newspapers.
In 1950, Charles C. Anderson, the founder's son, inherited the store and expanded it into a chain. The company incorporated as Bookland in 1964.
By 1980, the company had 50 stores.
In 1988, Bookland acquired the Gateway Books retail chain based in Knoxville, Tennessee. The same year, the company opened its first superstore format store.
In 1992, the company changed its name to Books-A-Million, Inc. and became a public company via an initial public offering of 2.6 million shares at a price of $13 per share.
In 1998, the company launched its website, booksamillion.com.
On November 25, 1998, during the dot-com bubble, the stock price soared from $3 per share to $38.94 on November 27, 1998, and an intra-day high of $47.00 on November 30, 1998, after the company announced an updated website. Two weeks later, the share price was back down to $10. By 2000, the share price had returned to $3. Those days included suspenseful times for day traders, such as when the stock moved up 6 points in 13 minutes. During this time, insiders sold hundreds of thousands of shares.
In 1999, the company acquired NetCentral, the designer of its website, and began operating American Wholesale Book Company, a book wholesaler and distributor.
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In April 2010, the company paid $3 million for a 40% stake in Yogurt Mountain, a frozen yogurt retailer and franchisor. Six months later, the company opened Yogurt Mountain locations in its bookstores.
In September 2010, the company launched 2nd & Charles, a trader of used media, with its first store in Hoover, Alabama across from Riverchase Galleria.
In December 2015, the company was acquired by its chairman, Clyde B. Anderson, and his family, for $21 million, taking the company private and delisting its shares from the Nasdaq.
In November 2016, the company began to sell self-published books.
From Wikipedia’s article on Books-A-Million, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5