Buyer-Less Borders Will Liquidate

There will be no storybook ending for Borders. The 40-year old bookseller could start liquidating its 399 remaining stores as early as Friday. The chain, which helped pioneer the big-box bookseller concept, is seeking court approval to liquidate its stores after it failed to receive any bids that would keep it in business. The company is expected to go out of business by the end of September.

"We were all working hard towards a different outcome, but the headwinds we have been facing" proved too strong, said President Mike Edwards. Analysts predict ripples through the industry as 10,700 employees lose their jobs: "Bookstore employees don't just sell books, they sell the activity of reading," says one expert. "This industry is going to slowly figure out that a lot of e-book readers still use bookstores all the time to discover what's new before heading home to buy it for their e-reading device." (More Borders stories.)