AllThingsD » Borders Group

Borders Denies Issues With Small Publishers

Eric Savitz — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:40:50 +0000

Borders Group (BGP) on Friday denied a recent report from Debtwire that it has extended the length of time it is taking to pay small publishers; it also denied that a group of small publishers has hired the bankruptcy law firm Lowenstein Sander.

“Borders has continued to pay its vendors in a timely manner, has not lengthened its days to pay, and has not been contacted by a group of publishers as alleged,” the company said.

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Why Are Music Sales Dropping? Because It's Hard to Buy Music

Peter Kafka — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:34:52 +0000

Digital is the future, but analog is the present. Which is why CD sales remain the biggest revenue driver for the music business. But big-box retailers, who sell almost all of the industry’s discs, are determined to change that, by relentlessly cutting back on the amount of floorspace they allocate to CDs.

Latest example: Borders Group (BGP), the struggling book chain, has cut its music inventory by 30 percent in the last year, the company said. Music now occupies about seven percent of its floorspace, and the space it used to take up has been given over to higher-margin products like children’s books.

Borders makes up a relatively small portion of U.S. music sales, but most big retailers have been doing the same thing for more than a year. If you don’t believe me, try to find the CD section next time you visit a Target (TGT) or Best Buy (BBY) this month.

The big stores will embrace individual albums–if they have an exclusive, like Best Buy’s deal with Guns N’ Roses, or Wal-Mart’s (WMT) recent AC/DC promotion. (That’s Best Buy’s GNR promotion, pictured above. Lonely, isn’t it?) But beyond that, they are basically telling music shoppers, who bought some $7 billion worth of discs last year, to take their business elsewhere.

[Image Credit: Idolator]

Borders Abandons Search for Buyer; Stock Tumbles

Eric Savitz — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 20:11:51 +0000

Borders Group (BGP) late yesterday said it is “no longer contemplating” the sale of the company. (You have to think that’s because they can’t find anyone to buy it.) That news, combined with some fairly ugly results for the fiscal third quarter ended Nov. 1, has the stock reeling. Combined with the recently punk numbers from Barnes & Noble (BKS), the latest results suggest all is not well in the book-selling business, providing one more reason to worry about current sales at online book selling king, Amazon.com (AMZN).

Borders reported Q3 sales of $682.1 million, well short of the Street consensus of $726.5 million. The company lost $172.2 million in the quarter, including $133.2 million in various noncash charges.

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Amazon Buying Borders? Don't Bet on It, Says Stifel

Eric Savitz — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 22:30:37 +0000

Earlier this week, the hedge fund manager William Ackman of Pershing Square Capital Management floated the idea that the book retailer Borders Group (BGP) should consider selling itself to Amazon.com (AMZN). That would be certainly be a good thing for Ackman, since Pershing Square owns about 30% of Borders. He compared the concept of Amazon-owned retailer stores to Apple’s successful move into bricks-and-mortar retailing.

But for a variety of reasons, this seems like a long shot idea. Scott Devitt, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus, says bluntly, “not a chance.”

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