The wholesaler, which had credit insurance cover pulled by Euler Hermes earlier this month, has laid off “just under” 60 people, or 2 percent of overall staff. Included in the cuts are two executives for entertainment and music purchasing, LJ reports. CEO Thomas Morgan says “We have taken a fresh look at our organizational structure and made some adjustments…. We are continuing to pursue retail business that meets our financial objectives and are moving forward with a number of new retail accounts.” He notes, “During challenging economic times, it is our desire to cut all non-employee expenses first, but we […]
Finance
Borders Buys Another Month
Borders announced yesterday that they have extended the deadline by one month on both the repayment of their $42.5 million senior secured term loan to Pershing Square, as well as the “put” to require Pershing to purchase their Paperchase subsidiary for $65 million. Both deadlines have been extended to February 16. In late November when reporting quarterly earnings Borders said they were “in discussions with Pershing Square regarding an alternative financing transaction.” The nearly worthless stock has still managed to decline another 20 percent in early trading today, though Barnes & Noble has suffered weak trading the past two days […]
Bertram's Status–Whatever
Ever since the troubles at Woolworth’s became severe earlier this fall, we’ve been dubious about the short statements from Bertram’s managing director Michael Neil, whose twin pillars have been business is great and sale of the book wholesaler is imminent. Now Neil finally admits no sale is likely until next year, and calls himself unrealistic: “”Bertrams will be sold–probably not as quickly as we said it would be, but that’s because of Christmas and New Year. It’s unrealistic to think it would be sorted out this close to Christmas.” And business remains great, except not: “We had a great week […]
Bertelsmann Sells British Club
In a press release issued this morning in German, Bertelsmann announced the sale of their British book clubs, Book Club Associates (BCA), to Munich’s holding company Aurelius. The transfer is scheduled for January 1. BCA has approximately 700,000 members and sales are said to be in the “middle double-digit million euro range.” This will be the first British property in Aurelius’s portfolio.
A Little More Time for Redstone
Today’s deadline for Sumner Redstone’s National Amusements to repay $800 million in debt has “has been extended as the company makes headway in negotiations with its banks,” the WSJ reports–even as he and Shari Redstone remain at adds over the solution. “Shari, who runs the movie theaters, remains deeply opposed to sacrificing them and has been putting pressure on her father and his advisers to consider other asset sales. The disagreement has become so heated that Ms. Redstone and her father are only communicating by fax, according to people familiar with the situation.”WSJ
Credit Insurance Lifted for Borders UK
Top credit insurer Euler Hermes is continuing to pull insurance cover from a number of retail operations, now including all of Borders UK, as well as the UK’s Book People. The decision is reportedly based on the overall economic decline rather than specific weaknesses at those operations. The Bookseller says that “the action has prompted at least one distributor to advise its clients to reconsider their trading limits. Hachette-owned LBS has emailed its publisher clients warning them that it wants to be told of the new limits by 23rd December or the supply of books will be placed on hold.”Bookseller