Borders Group

Borders Group

Borders Group, Inc. (former NYSE ticker symbol BGP) was an international book and music retailer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The company employed approximately 19,500 throughout the U.S., primarily in its Borders and Waldenbooks stores.

As of January 30, 2010, the company operated 511 Borders superstores in the US. The company also operated 175 stores in the Waldenbooks Specialty Retail segment, including Waldenbooks, Borders Express, Borders airport stores, and Borders Outlet stores.

Borders Group formerly operated stores in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. However, these were sold off to Pacific Equity Partners (which owned rival Angus & Robertson) in 2008, then were later sold again to RedGroup Retail. The stores continued to operate under the Borders brand as the unaffiliated "Borders Asia Pacific" until RedGroup was placed into voluntary administration in February 2011; with the five New Zealand stores sold to the James Pascoe Group, and the Australian stores gradually shut down, with the last group to close by July 17.

On February 16, 2011, Borders applied for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and began liquidating 226 of its stores in the United States. Despite an offer from the private-equity firm Najafi Companies, Borders was not able to find a buyer before its July 17 bidding deadline, and therefore began liquidating its remaining 399 retail outlets on July 22, with the last remaining stores closing their doors on Sunday, September 18, 2011. The Chapter 11 case was ultimately converted to Chapter 7. Rival bookseller Barnes & Noble acquired Borders' trademarks and customer list. On October 14, 2011; Borders' former Website was replaced by a redirect to Barnes & Noble's site.