Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Borders says they are no longer for sale....

We are of two minds about this, first, great news. It mean Ann Arbor's independent bookstore is gonna make a go of today's ailing economy AS an independent, no doubt many employees are thrilled today. The other mind is that quite simply nobody would buy them when they were listing themselves for sale every week for the last few months. If they simply don't have the equity or products in warehouse and in store somebody would want to buy, how good of a go are they gonna make?. There is, of course the underlying problem that George Jones still runs the show and Mr. Jones hasn't exactly lit the fire under Borders to propel them to success or cut a viable deal.

We hope everyone there keeps their jobs and rides this out. Johnny has a lot of good friends at 100 Phoenix. I know there are some bright book business minds in there who truly love the field they are in. Trouble is they keep getting thwarted by the George Jones' in the company. Borders stock was trading under a dollar earlier this week for a short while, it wasn't the merch group or the buyers who did that, it was the higher ups.

Time for a change at the top at Borders we think...

4 comments:

Trixie Junior Space Punk said...

Yup, GJ hasn't been the answer and the grocery guys started the precipitous slide. I do have faith that Borders will figure it out and be able to stay in business and in the state of MI. There are a ton of great people working there and they have homes and cars to pay for and children to raise and I pray they can continue to do so.

Johnny Action Space Punk said...

They are good people there who deserve a MUCH better leadership team, and by that I mean CEO and the Board

Anonymous said...

Well, for starters, looks like they violated IT Rule 101 and made actual IT changes during a HOLIDAY WEEKEND! Never ever make changes to your website on the most busiest holiday weekend of the year! DUH! DUH! DUH!

The "good people" at Borders currently have the following problem at their website when you click on "books" to attempt to view and purchase.

"Error
Error

This page can't be displayed due to a security violation. Contact support for additional information."

Which means, nobody can currently browse books and purchase a book online due to some fine programming error. Wonder how much per hour that is costing them?

Regardless, the real problem they have is, what made them great is what will kill them. Too much expansion, too many expenses, shifting customer base, not enough revenues.

Store sales are worsening, the gap with its No. 1 competitor is widening, their retail segment in general is on the decline, their customers are shifting to other companies and method of purchase, technology is threatening to change the business even further, which means limited upside from current operating levels.


Bankrupt Court with many doors closed could be reality in the next 12-18 months if they don't quickly turn things around......

Anonymous said...

More bad news for Borders- current stock price is now 65-69 CENTS per share, down from 12 bucks 1 year ago, so now a reverse stock split to possibly prop up the stock price is being considered? All that will happen with that is, more shares will be sold off and less will be purchased. Splits like this are never good for the shareholders and rarely has the intended affect for the company. Shareholders end up with bigger percentage losses much faster as this is a sign to the market to sell what ever they have left to sell. Hope all you employees sold it all off before the share prices dropped below 1 buck......

http://www.mlive.com/annarbornews/business/index.ssf/2008/12/reverse_stock_split_for_border.html