Borders’ liquidation sales were formally approved by the bankruptcy court on Thursday afternoon, with those sales starting today. The stores will accept gift cards until liquidation is completed. Borders Bucks will be honored through July 31 only, and Borders Reward Plus discounts will be granted through August 5, limited to an additional 10 percent off any purchases. Judge Glenn also provisionally approved the sale of 30 stores to Books-A-Million, including furniture, fixtures, equipment, and inventory, and obligates BAMM to pay all cure costs (including taxes, rent, and CAM charges) should the sale go through. But the sale requires the approval […]
Borders
At Liquidation Hearing, BAMM Offers To Buy As Many As 35 Borders Stores
Borders lawyer Andrew Glenn called it “a very bittersweet day” at Thursday morning’s bankruptcy court hearing, as he again reiterated the company’s disappointment that no full going concern bids emerged by the July 17 deadline. But in what he characterized as a “late breaking development”, Books-a-Million has indeed offered to take over the leases, inventory, furniture, and other related items on 30 stores, with an option on a further five stores. The offer would preserve anywhere from between 1000 and 1500 jobs, Glenn said, and he asked the court to proceed and later approve of the agreement, which Borders said […]
Borders Reported June Sales of $90 Million And $20.6 Million in Losses
In advance of Thursday morning’s court hearing on liquidation plans, Borders filed its operating report for the month of June. The company reported total revenue of $90.1 million (of which $86.6 million were sales) and an operating loss of $20.6 million, of which $19 million was due to reorganization costs. Also, current and former executives Scott Henry, Glen Tomaszewski, and Michele Cloutier each received $50,000 in bonuses. Monthly Report Borders also responded to 99 objections from creditors in a separate filing on Wednesday, calling those objections “irrelevant” since they don’t intend to carry on contracts with business partners and landlords […]
Where Will Borders Shoppers Take Their Dollars?
Now that Borders is moving towards liquidation, we thought it might be useful to look back at our special item from last month featuring consumer survey data elicited exclusively for Publishers Lunch readers by Bowker PubTrack Consumer on where regular Borders customers might take their book-purchasing dollars if the chain goes out of business. Some of the results are likely to differ now, since the data comes from the roughly 10 percent of surveyed book buyers who indicated buying a book from Borders in April, but it addresses critical questions on the minds of all publishers and authors right now. […]
Borders Assures Landlords That The Rush To Sell is The Fault of Lenders
Though the myriad of objections filed by landlords by Monday afternoon’s deadline over Borders’ prospective sale to Najafi was par for the course, Borders filed their own response motion in bankruptcy court late Tuesday. In it they say the accelerated sale process owes to GE Capital’s stipulation under the amended financing agreement that the company must find a buyer by July 29 – and have the sale approved by July 22 — lest they default. “The sale simply cannot take place in the timeframe required if there are any further delays in the schedule,” Borders stated. “If the sale does […]
Borders Has Preliminary Sale Agreement with Najafi
Borders announced Thursday night it has entered into an asset purchase agreement with Najafi Companies’ Direct Brands unit, which it will submit to the bankruptcy court as a stalking horse bid as part of a court-supervised auction of the bookseller. “Purchase” is an interesting term (“take” might be another one), since Najafi would put up $215.1 million for “substantially all of the company’s assets,” acquiring inventory potentially worth far more than that, along with assuming $220 million in liabilities. It’s not clear how many locations Najafi intends to keep operating–but there is an agreement in place already with Hilco and […]