Matt Fajack, vice chancellor for finance and administration, told members of the Board of Trustees why the university was investigating the possibility of privatizing the Student Stores in a committee meeting Wednesday afternoon.

“It appears that most bookstores of our size and prestige should have a profit of two to four million dollars,” he said. “So it looked like there was an opportunity to at least explore other models.”

All profits from the Student Stores go directly to scholarships and last year the stores made around 425,000 dollars in profit.

“Our primary goal for this is to raise money for need-based aid,” he said. “We’ve also asked the people that work in the Student Stores to put together a business plan that they could increase profits.”

Student Stores employees have raised concerns about the effect a potential change would have on their job security, but Fajack said he doesn’t think this is how the private companies would increase profits.

“A lot of people say ‘well we’re going to cut employees or cut employee pay,'” Fajack said. “At least in my discussions with them that’s not where the addition contribution to scholarships would come from.”

The university started looking into privatization after Fallett approached UNC with an unsolicited offer this summer. In order to investigate the matter more thoroughly, the university is currently accepting applications to privatize the stores.

Fallett and Barnes and Noble are the largest campus bookstore companies, running nearly 2,000 across the United States between the two of them.

Fajack said this experience might make the Student Stores more profitable.

“Since they manage so many stores they have retail gurus who know where to place things, how to place things, what to look at, when to do sales,” he said. “Another place they can dramatically increase revenues is it appears they are much better than us at online sales.”

Interested businesses have until February 18 to submit their proposals to UNC, which is trying to have this resolved by the beginning of July.

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