"The troubled Ann Arbor, Mich., bookseller could file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy-protection as soon as Monday or Tuesday, paving the way for hundreds of store closings and thousands of job losses, said people familiar with the matter..."I wonder if President Obama will issue some "too big to fail" proclamation, and screw the secured creditors, ala General Motors and Chrysler? Oh, wait. There's no deep pocket union cronies to buy off in the book business. Never mind.
"Borders's finances crumbled amid declining interest in bricks-and-mortar booksellers, a broad cultural trend for which it offered no answers. The bookseller suffered a series of management gaffes, piled up unsustainable debts and failed to cultivate a meaningful presence on the Internet or in increasingly popular digital e-readers."
"A bankruptcy filing would help Amazon, Barnes & Noble and newer booksellers such as Apple Inc. and Google Inc. grab more customers. Amazon peeled off customers when Borders folded in the U.K. about a year ago. "We expect something similar will happen in the U.S.," said the head of one major publisher..."The free market calls this "creative destruction." Survival of the fittest. Those able to adapt to changing markets, thrive. Those that don't, take their lumps. Economic Darwinism, if you will. Liberals love Darwinism when defending the relative chaos and abstraction of existence, yet when jobs or finances get threatened, Liberals often want potent and purposeful management to design solutions - usually in the form of redistributed tax dollars. Funny how that works.
"Among the biggest losers in the bankruptcy are shareholders, including financiers Bennett LeBow and William Ackman, whose investments in Borders likely will be wiped out. Messrs. LeBow and Ackman held more than 30% of Borders's stock as of late last year, according to Standard & Poor's Capital IQ. Mr. LeBow, who became CEO of Borders Group last year, invested $25 million last May as Borders tried to rework its finances. Mr. Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management LP is expected to lose at least $125 million on its investment."
Related: Newsweek, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Blockbuster, et al. 20 Companies That Went Bankrupt in 2010 (many of which are still open for business).
