Friday, March 21, 2008

This just in...

Have you ever wanted to own a bookstore?

Well, as you know, I'm a part-time bookseller for Barnes and Noble. I love it. I decied a long time ago I'd rather work for some one, rather that own my own business. I came to this conclusion after years of running other people's businesses for them. It was kind of like going to Wharton without the expense.

Well if you have every wanted to own your very own bookstore, Borders, yes, Borders is for sale! Here's the story from Shelfawarness, today:

Borders for Sale; Largest Shareholder May Buy Divisions

Fasten your seat belts.

Borders is putting itself up for sale or may sell divisions. It has suspended its dividend. It is borrowing some $42.5 million from the hedge fund that is its largest shareholder. That fund may buy parts of the company and is being granted warrants for Borders stock that represent about 20% of the company.

Noting that "this will be a challenging year for retailers due to continued uncertainty in the economic environment" and that "the current credit environment has made many . . . alternatives prohibitively expensive or entirely unavailable," CEO George Jones said that the deal with Pershing provides "funding that gives us adequate opportunity to implement our plans this year and pursue a range of longer term solutions." Without the deal, "liquidity issues may otherwise have arisen in the next few months."

Jones added that Borders believes that its 2009 financial targets "remain attainable, yet within the current economic environment, we will be slowed in our progress and expect that we'll reach them later than originally planned. Still, we believe our strategic plan remains the right path toward achieving these goals." This plan includes the imminent launching of the company's website on its own, the spread of "new concept" stores that emphasize digital offerings, the display of more titles face out and a related reduction in inventory of 5%-10%, among other initiatives.

Perhaps ol' George Jones may be looking for a new CEO position, that is if you don't want to keep him on.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

That would be a lot of work. Not for me and I prefer Barnes and Noble anyway, I wouldn't want to try to compete.

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