Best Buy won’t be coming home to daddy, after all.
Dick Schulze, the Minnesota entrepreneur who created the nation’s biggest electronics chain 30 years ago, has all but given up his bid to take the company private, sources told The Post.
The 71-year-old former chairman of the chain has been scrambling since last summer to corral a team of buyout firms to acquire Best Buy in a deal valued at upwards of $8 billion.
Private-equity firms, however, have been on the fence about a full-fledged takeover, concerned about the risks of piling as much as $6 billion of debt atop an already struggling retailer.
PE players are instead considering the purchase of a minority stake, a sign, people close to the situation said, of optimism about the company’s turnaround prospects.
“People think [Chief Executive Hubert] Joly is basically doing a good job,” according to one insider, referring to the French-born hotel exec who was hired as CEO last August after Schulze had made his initial buyout approach.
Schulze, who owns 20 percent of the chain, is in talks to participate in a downsized deal for a larger minority stake, sources said.
Nevertheless, he won’t be in the driver’s seat in the deal under discussion, according to insiders.
“At this point, this is something [Schulze] is sort of going along with,” according to one source briefed on the situation.
While the deal could create a sizable minority stakeholder, sources said it’s unlikely it would create an entity that controls more than the 35 percent of the shares needed to effectively control the company.
“That would create a shareholder revolt,” one Best Buy investor said of such a deal.
In another possible scenario, sources said Best Buy would grant one or two board seats to the prospective investor team, and the founder isn’t likely to be one of the nominees.
“[Schulze] already quit the board, and people don’t see a lot of sense in putting him back on,” one insider said.
While the identity of the investment firms couldn’t be learned, Best Buy’s tires lately have been kicked by KKR, TPG and Leonard Green — buyout firms with deep benches when it comes to retail management.
Billionaire John Malone’s Liberty Media, whose investments include Sirius XM Radio, Live Nation and Barnes & Noble, is also said to have mulled a stake.
A Best Buy spokesman declined to comment and reps for Schulze didn’t respond to requests for comment.
james.covert@nypost.com
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