Cash-Strapped Borders Considering Selling Itself

Parts, or all, of bookseller on table, it secures $42.5M loan to keep going
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 20, 2008 11:11 AM CDT
Cash-Strapped Borders Considering Selling Itself
The exterior of a Borders book store is seen in Sunnyvale, Calif., Aug. 27, 2007. Borders, the nation's second-largest bookseller, said Thursday March 20, 2008 it may put itself up for sale.   (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, FILE)

Bookseller Borders is considering selling itself or some of its divisions, the Detroit Free Press reports today. The company, based in Ann Arbor, Mich., is in the midst of a turnaround, but is desperately short on cash, today borrowing $42.5 million from its biggest shareholder, Perishing Square Capital Management. Perishing also offered to buy parts of the company’s international business.

Borders’ liquidity problem will be tough to solve in the current punishing credit market. Borders reported a fourth-quarter profit of $64.7 million yesterday, which was a big improvement on a year earlier, when it lost $73.6 million. But CEO George Jones said that current economic conditions would slow down the book chain’s rebound. (More Borders stories.)

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