History
In September 2007, Borders (UK) Ltd. was acquired by Luke Johnson's London-based private equity investor Risk Capital Partners in a deal purportedly worth £20 million. Bookshop Acquisitions Ltd. - a subsidiary of Risk Capital Partners - was specifically set up for the purchase and the deal included the right to use the Borders and Books etc. brand names consistent with the brand. Under the deal, Borders would receive an equity interest of about 17% in Bookshop Acquisitions.
In January 2008, David Roche stepped down as C.E.O. of Borders (UK) and was replaced by the chain's former managing director, Philip Downer. Upon his appointment, Downer called for a category review of the entire company although he made it clear there were no immediate plans to further change the structure of the business.
Subsequently, it was announced in March 2008 that Borders UK planned to close its distribution centre (based in Cornwall) on 29 August, in favour of having publishers and wholesalers deliver directly to its shops, this being exactly opposite to the decision of Waterstone's who planned to test and open their own distribution centre, colloquially referred to as 'The Hub', from the end of May.
In July 2008, Borders launched an e-commerce website. In a bid to try to take back a share of internet sales of books, the beta testing of their new transactional website commenced, due for full completion before the end of the month.
Borders sold eight London Books Etc shops to competitor Waterstones in August 2008 for an undisclosed sum.
Five Borders shops in Oxford Street, Llantrisant, Blanchardstown, Swindon and London Colney were closed in July 2009 and replaced by New Look. After July 2009, Borders was owned by Valco Capital Partners, part of Hilco, who specialise in distressed retailers.
At the end of September 2009, it was announced that the majority of the remaining Books Etc, and the two Borders Express shops, would be sold, and closing down sales began shortly after.
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“A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)