B. Riley Founder Informally Offers to Buy Embattled Company (4)

Bryant Riley, the co-founder and largest shareholder of B. Riley Financial Inc., informally offered to buy the shares of the embattled investment firm he doesn’t already own.

Riley is willing to buy the stock at $7 a share, according to a regulatory filing Friday. While that represents an almost 40% premium to Thursday’s closing price, it’s far from the roughly $50 that the Los Angeles-based brokerage and investment firm was trading at a year ago.

The shares rose 16% to $5.85 in New York, pegging the company’s market value at about $177 million. In a statement, B. ...