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Uncategorized Tuesday, July 19th 2011 at 8:58 am

Borders Bookstore Chain is Closing All Remaining Stores, Pretty Much Dead

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Borders, also known as that bookstore that isn’t Barnes & Noble, will be closing their 399 remaining stores and laying off about 11,000 employees after yesterday’s deadline for new bids for the chain came and went, leaving only liquidation firms Gordon Brothers and Hilco as the only bidders. Borders filed for bankruptcy in February, but as one may have guessed from the above news, the attempts to keep the chain alive didn’t go well, with Borders only receiving their first bid last month.

Borders will now ask a judge to approve the sale to a liquidation firm, and Borders predicts their going-out-of-business sales at their remaining stores could begin as early as Friday, with the whole ordeal wrapping up around September. Goodbye, sweet bookstore prince that confused us by being the other “b” bookstore. Read on below for Borders’ release.

Borders Group to Submit Hilco and Gordon Brothers Proposal to Court for Approval

– Hilco and Gordon Brothers to purchase store assets of the business and administer liquidation process

– Borders extends gratitude to dedicated employees and loyal customers

Ann Arbor, July 18, 2011 — Borders Group reported today that, in accordance with the terms of its financing agreement, the Company will submit to the Court for approval the previously-announced proposal from Hilco and Gordon Brothers to purchase the store assets of the business and administer the liquidation process. Borders said that, in the absence of a formal proposal from a going concern bidder, it did not require an auction prior to presenting the proposal to the Court at a scheduled hearing on Thursday, July 21, 2011.

“Following the best efforts of all parties, we are saddened by this development,” said Borders Group President Mike Edwards. “We were all working hard towards a different outcome, but the headwinds we have been facing for quite some time, including the rapidly changing book industry, eReader revolution, and turbulent economy, have brought us to where we are now,” he added.

“For decades, Borders stores have been destinations within our communities, places where people have sought knowledge, entertainment, and enlightenment and connected with others who share their passion. Everyone at Borders has helped millions of people discover new books, music, and movies, and we all take pride in the role Borders has played in our customers’ lives,” Edwards continued, “I extend a heartfelt thanks to all of our dedicated employees and our loyal customers.”

Borders currently operates 399 stores and employs approximately 10,700 employees. Subject to the Court’s approval, under the proposal, liquidation is expected to commence for some stores and facilities as soon as Friday, July 22, with a phased rollout of the program which is expected to conclude by the end of September. Borders intends to liquidate under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and, as a result, Borders expects to be able to pay vendors in the ordinary course for all expenses incurred during the bankruptcy cases.

(paidContent via Techmeme)

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  • Fbonzo

    Horrible news.

    I adore Project Gutenberg (and have supported it since its inception)–an ebook is not a book. Amazon is not a book store. Having a Facebook friend is not the same as knowing your neighbor. That doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with any of these technologies, but it is tremendously sad to see all these wonderful venues–bricks and mortar book stores, that is–vanishing in the electronic wind. As an advocate and child of the digital age, I nevertheless feel that we are suffering some enormous losses and I wish I could see some way to forestall or prevent these unfortunate events. I believe we are all poorer for the death of these public–in-the-flesh–fora. 

  • DrMatto

    Agreed–Horrible News!!! I LOVE Borders!

  • Phillip Steele

    Sad, will miss Borders.  Now with the ‘E-Readers’ you will download, read and erase.  No more ‘book cases’ and memories.  Now all we will have is what is on the screen and toxic waste when the E-Reader is thrown out!

  • http://marcusspeh.com Marcus Speh

    for me, it is more important to have readers than have readers find me in store b or a. e-books will not (and have not) lead to the destruction of book chains, which are not much better than supermarkets for food. having said that, i have many fond memories of a borders in tottenham ct rd, london. e-books may lead to greater attention (and more profits) for the content producer (the authors), though probably at the expense of the publisher. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=833528568 Andrew Breese

    I feel for the staff affected the most. I can’t see the dislike of e-readers as productive though – this is a brutal change for us to move through, and I will miss browsing through book stores as more are affected, but it is a move that was inevitable. I’ll be maintaining my bookcase and still buying paper books, as that is my preferred medium to read – the source of the book is what is changing here.

  • Wdhart7

    Borders sucks, that’s why they are gonig out of business…end of story (yeah amazon!)

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Khalifa-Al-Sanea/774466163 Khalifa Al Sanea

    Sad day in human history…

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Z4CJFSWSF6NJQ2QO56FEBHKHJM K

    You are absolutely right!  E-readers will never lead to the destruction of book chains!  I mean, name me one book chain that’s been put out of business since E-readers came along!

    Oh.  Oh wait.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Z4CJFSWSF6NJQ2QO56FEBHKHJM K

    You are absolutely right.  Books chains are not much better than supermarkets for food! And what good are supermarkets for food?  Well, besides assuring people have access to an abundance of different products at affordable prices – but who needs that?

    Indeed, book stores should be more like mom and pop stores – I can see it now, a 200-page paperback, covered in mold, costing $15.

  • http://marcusspeh.com Marcus Speh

    K, equating supermarkets and “access to an abundance of different [food] products at affordable prices” sounds wonderful. i must get back to that earth from my lofty cloud one day. has life on earth while i was dreaming really turned into paradise? – but forgive me if i can’t keep up with you on a sarcastic note: really, supermarkets are more like parasites that have driven small stores out of business (cp. Michel Serres. they feed on the community turning food-buying, in fact the entire food value chain, into a monoculture. which is dangerous for the environment, the planet, and leads to bad food at too high (for the quality) prices. and so on. as for the books: i love book chains, i thought i made that clear. i love books. they will not be replaced as a technology by e-books either, but the eco-system of reading/writing/publishing/selling books will change profoundly. savvy?

  • http://marcusspeh.com Marcus Speh

    K, mate, borders started to go down before the e-book (as a successful concept) even came along—the issue may be mismanagement, market forces, etc. borders and chains like it killed the independent bookstore round the corner… and now borders has not been executed by the e-book: the e-book merely delivered the last blow. it is undoubtedly implicated of course but from my work with publishers internationally, i know that many of them use the e-book as an excuse not to have to address the deeper issues that lead to the success of the e-book, which has in one form or another been around for many years. e-books are both catalyst and cause of deeper changes. to begin to actually analyse this instead of light bantering, check out this article. 

  • Electricvoodoo

    good riddance. Borders was a horrible company.

  • Tim Miller

    As a former Borders employee, I am not sorry at all as they treated their employees horribly and indulged in many questionable and just plain stupid business practices.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Kimberly-Sarcinello/1208923088 Kimberly Sarcinello

    @ Tim Miller:  I was a Borders employee for nearly TEN years, (NINE years as a manager) and I tend to agree with you.  In the beginning, working for Borders was WONDERFUL.  Great pay, great benefits, generous stock options, and LOYALTY was rewarded.  Then, there was a “restructure” and basically, I was told that my position “no longer existed,”  and I was given an option to take a ”NEW” position….(WITH THE SAME EXACT RESPONSIBILITIES, AT A PAY RATE THAT WAS LOWER THAN MY STARTING PAY WHEN I WAS HIRED NINE YEARS PREVIOUSLY, about a 40% paycut.)   Borders SAID that they valued long-term employees, but I guess they figured experience and loyalty was TOO EXPENSIVE.  What happened to me, happened to thousands of long-term employees.   During my last two years, I saw Borders’ change, and NOT for the better.  There were so many things that seemed to been done WRONG.  On a store level, new General Managers were hired that didn’t have a clue, (most of them had NEVER worked in retail or at a bookstore.)  There was so much focus on MONEY, rather than the Borders’ brothers original philosophy when they opened their 1st store in Ann Arbor. It seemed Borders opened way too many stores in a short amount of time.  I worked as a trainer and Inventory Manager at MANY of those new stores and openings.
    It is a shame.  But, I guess when the people at the top make poor decisions, this is what happens / happened.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Amin-Hussein/100000585116299 Amin Hussein

    I am so sad for the news, I loved the chain, I know it is an old story but I just knew….:((((

  • Carlosiarboleda

    The real problem is that even if paper books don’t disappear, sooner or later, the only way to buy them will be online… and that is one sad way to buy books. Nothing like holding them, looking, reading, feeling…
    I refuse to look at a couple pages with google docs viewer in Amazon instead of the above

  • Omarjackson209

    we are all in a way  loosing a sense of purity to this internet downloading age. it really saddens me that book stores like borders is suffering. borders is not only a bookstore, but it’s a place to discover new music, discover new interest and so on, and even more, borders is the kind of bookstore that offered the kind of environment where you can engage people and make new friends, and from that learn new things. and to add, i don’t know about all of you out there, but i know for me, a printed paperback, or hardback is far more interesting than owning some “nook”.
    when i see a young lady who’s reading a book on the train in new york, often times i’ll go, “what are you reading, or i’ll say, i’ve read that before, you should also read such and such, the point which i am making, is that this internet age is taking away people’s opportunity to interact and socialize with other human beings

  • Pkachorn

    i have a gift card that has not been used…does that mean i can trash it since the store is no longer here.

  • yahoo

    this is awfull I cant believe that the entire chain is closing…. You where my favorite bookstore, I thought that only the store near me was closing. but the whole chain??!?!?!?!wow……. :(

  • Memo

    Name “Borders” should stay the same.