Best Buy founder aims to buy back retailer in £5.8bn deal

Schulze, who was ousted as chairman in June, already owns 20% of the retailer and is looking to team up with private equity firms to buy the remainder.

Schulze’s financial adviser Credit Suisse said it was confident the debt refinancing could be arranged after talks were held with private equity firms. Schulze would commit $1bn (£640,000) of his own money to the acquisition.

The founder has been exploring buying Best Buy since he lost his chairmanship after an internal probe found that he failed to tell the board about allegations that then chief executive Brian Dunn, who exited in April, had been conducting an affair with a female employee.

Best Buy said that it was reviewing the “highly conditional” proposal from Schulze.

The retailer has been struggling of late and has been closing stores and making redundancies. It exited the UK last year, closing its 11 stores, as it failed to take off in the country.