Read this earlier today.

Best Buy CEO Resigns in Midst of Company Probe
Published: Tuesday, 10 Apr 2012 | 5:20 PM ET

Best Buy said Chief Executive Brian Dunn resigned from the world's largest consumer electronics chain in the middle of what the company called a board investigation of his personal conduct — another complication at a time Best Buy has struggled against stepped-up competition from Internet retailers and discounters.


Under Dunn's tenure, which lasted less than three years, critics have complained that Best Buy [BBY 21.32 -1.33 (-5.87%) ] became a showroom for Amazon.com [AMZN 186.98 -4.89 (-2.55%) ] and other Internet retailers, with consumers going to Best Buy stores to sample electronics like high-definition televisions, but then buying them elsewhere at lower prices.

According to a company statement reported by the Wall Street Journal's online edition, "Certain issues were brought to the board's attention regarding Mr. Dunn's personal conduct, unrelated to the company's operations or financial controls, and an audit committee investigation was initiated."

Before the investigation could be completed, "Mr. Dunn chose to resign," the company said. Best Buy did not initially disclose the probe when announcing the resignation and has not provided additional details, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Best Buy has fallen short of sales expectations for several quarters in a row. Despite offering bigger discounts and free shipping to lure shoppers, same-store sales fell 2.4 percent in the latest quarter, including a 2.2 percent decline at U.S. stores open at least 14 months.

"I hate to be rude, but I think he (Dunn) was doing a terrible job. This is a company that had a sales guy in charge, and I just don't think they are well positioned to deal with the onslaught from the Internet," said Michael Pachter, analyst at Wedbush Securities.

"They have a big disadvantage to the Internet retailers because they have a big cost structure," he said. "So they need a guy who can fix that rather than trying to sell more stuff."

Best Buy shares rose slightly in morning trade on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock is down more than 31 percent since Dunn became CEO, compared with a 52.9 percent increase in the Standard & Poor's 500 index.

In March, Best Buy announced plans to close 50 of its 1,100 big box stores and cut 400 corporate and support jobs, moves critics said were a step in the right direction but not strong enough.

Dunn started at Best Buy as a sales associate in 1985 and rose through the ranks to become CEO in June 2009.

Best Buy said director Mike Mikan will serve as interim CEO while it looks for a permanent replacement for Dunn. Mikan, who will remain on the board while serving as interim CEO, has been a Best Buy director since April 2008. He formerly served as executive vice president and chief financial officer of UnitedHealth Group [UNH 57.56 -0.58 (-1%) ].

"There was mutual agreement that it was time for new leadership to address the challenges that face the company," Best Buy said in a statement on Dunn's departure.

Richard Schulze, the founder of Best Buy, continues to serve as chairman, the company said.

I would hold off on buying Best Buy extended warranties............... Oh crap, I just bought one!

Geff, this is a very real concern. I bought a big screen high def TV from Circuit City about a year before they closed, and purchased a 3rd party warranty from a company owned by GE. My TV failed within the warranty period and the company refused to honor it. The woman at the warranty company came right out and told me that now that Circuit City was out of business they weren't honoring Circuit City-sold warranties. I saw a lawyer who told me it would cost me more to sue than it was worth.

I never buy extended warranties anymore unless it's from Apple.

I bought a 4 year on my Oppo.

I bought an extended warranty for my little XM radio from Best Buy.......satellite radios are cheaply made crap and I already made use of the warranty a few months ago......(so if it breaks down again, I could live with having paid for it)

If you charged it, why not dispute the charge? It might be too late now, but some charge companies will make exceptions.

It was already paid for by the time the TV broke down. It turned out that it was a defect in the TV and because of a class action suit I've been offered $50 by Samsung. Of course, I had already replaced the TV and didn't have the serial number I needed to get the $50. My takeaway from the whole thing was don't buy extended warranties and don't buy Samsung.

I know have a Sharp LED with which I am very happy.

I did buy an extended warranty from PC Richards for my Sony SXRD television in 2005 which did come in handy when that TV acted up.
Since then the tv was considered defective by Sony so they sent me a free 55" flat screen to replace it, so that all worked out.

The SXRD still works to this day. The repair that was done in 2008 has held.

I think I need to call in a mfgr warranty for the crappy but cheap LCD TV I got a few months ago, after the buttons on the side started mixing up their commands. (Vol Down does Vol Up, etc). Also, the stand blows.

I might think hard about getting a future warranty from BB but I don't think I'm too worried about my current warranties not being honored. They're not going anywhere THAT soon.

I check out the extended warranties at Best Buy and then I purchase them from Amazon.

QFT - AppleCare is amazing. I get It for pretty much every Apple product I own and it's paid for itself many times over.

I'm actually waiting outside of the store right now waiting for them to replace a fan that died on a 3 year old laptop (under warranty).

I really haven't bought anything other than compact discs from Best Buy since 1998, when I purchased additional memory for a pre-Pentium PC, had it installed, and then found out that the sale price included a mail-in rebate...and unfortunately Best Buy was out of the mail-in rebate forms...

Best Buy will be around for a while. I don't think it's going anywhere.

The company was in positioned perfectly to make major gains after the closure of Circuit City, yet did nothing to take advantage of the situation. The biggest problem with Best Buy is that too many of the upper management that built the company made a killing on stock options and got out years ago. The people they've had in charge for the past 10 years or so haven't had a clue.

The recession could be used as an example for their troubles 5-10 years ago, but the elimination of Circuit City should have catapulted them out of it.

There's also no reason why a company like Best Buy shouldn't be able to create a web business to compete with Amazon. They could actually do them one better with the "pick up in store" option. It's time they get more competitive on pricing and did more to bolster their customer service.

Yes, their problems would seem to be caused by major incompetence; their only real competition as far as product lines & price is Walmart. And Walmart is short on major appliances & irt's also very difficult to find a parking space!

A couple of years ago I filled out one of Best Buy's online applications because I thought it might be a good place for a second job. From the questions you could see that they're really only interested in hiring people just out of high school these days.

http://pr.bby.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=24415 ... highlight=

The official list of store closings.

Thank you for the post.

Wow, been to this one afew times.
Oldsmar 11655 W Hillsborough Ave Tampa FL

Rick A.

I just read in the paper this morning that Best Buy is pulling out of a large store on Newbury Street in Boston. This location has really had some turnover during the past decade or so. It was a large Tower Records before they went under. Then it was a large Virgin Megastore. Best Buy is just the latest departure at this location.

Sears is still a pretty dominant player in the home appliance category.