Best Buy's founder Richard Schulze offered on Monday to buy the ailing electronics retailer for up to $8.8 billion.
The deal would be the biggest ever buyout of an American retailer, topping the $8.4 billion buyout of Toys "R" Us in 2005.
Schulze, who resigned from the company's board in June following CEO Brian Dunn's sex scandal with a female employee, said in a public letter that he would offer shareholders $24 to $26 per share.
The Minnesota-born billionaire offered to finance the transaction through a combination of investments from private equity firms, $1 billion of his own cash and debt financing.
"I cannot emphasize strongly enough how much I believe in Best Buy and its future," Schulze, 71, wrote in the letter addressed to the board of directors, "and how much I would welcome the opportunity to do what is best for shareholders and Best Buy."
Best Buy has been in the throes of the digital disruption as the retailer lost money and customers to internet commerce.
Similar to the now-defunct bookseller Borders, which shut down in 2011, Best Buy falls victim to the "showroom effect," where shoppers peruse their merchandise but purchase items for less on websites like Amazon.
The company lost $1.7 billion in the first quarter and it unveiled an $800 million cost cutting program that shuttered 50 stores and cut 400 jobs.
