Borders bordering on

Borders UK chief executioner Philip Downer has ruled out store closures. Speaking with his fingers crossed behind his back, he said: "in the near future". However given his past history he would seem to define the near future as no more than six minutes.
Downer said that among the immediate plans was a working capital injection, as well as new borrowing. He told The Bookseller: "In the short term there will be greater cash flow as we open up a new borrowing line. Beyond that it's ensuring the range, systems and processes in store are in place in order to maximise trade this Christmas."
Downer refused to discuss how much was paid for the business, his own personal stake(Bet it was huge!!) , or how much money would be injected into the business. However, he said that the business did not go into any form of administration as part of the buyout.
Nevertheless, he was stark about the issues facing the company. He said: "It will be extremely challenging but it is for any business that is not selling the basic staples like food. But I wouldn't be talking if I didn't see an opportunity to sell more products to more people and make money. But make no mistake, this is a tough environment."

The fact that Borders is first and foremost a BOOK SHOP and not a grocery store seems to have escaped Downer.
Downer appeared to rule-out further store closures and redundancies. He said: "There was a pretty significant slimming down of the head count in the store support office over the past 18 months. We run a pretty tight ship. We've never overstaffed our stores." Borders UK sold the leases on five of its stores earlier this week to fashion retailer New Look, with more than 100 jobs expected to be lost as a result.
Downer stressed that no fundamental changes would be made to Borders' offer. He said: "It will continue to have books at its core with a broad range of entertainment products gathered around it. Books remain at the core but to maximise margin in stores, we have to provide as many products as possible."
Former parent company Borders Group in the US retains the 17% stake it had following its sale of the retailer to Luke Johnson's Risk Capital Partners in 2007.
The deal marks Johnson's exit from the business and he will no longer continue as chairman. Downer refused to answer whether he thought the retailer had received sufficient funding from Risk Capital Partners. He said: "We had an excellent relationship and achieved some extraordinary things. We extracted the business from the US and fundamentally restructured it. It was a very successful period."
He said that Borders would benefit from cash and systems management support from Valco. He added: "There is also a network of companies that VCP can access that will open some product sourcing opportunities."
A conference with general managers, head office staff and suppliers is planned within the next few months and Downer said he was looking forward to talking to publishers.
He refused to comment on the disruption to supply, which was reported in The Bookseller this week. Publishers had complained that they were being kept in the dark over the chain's future, since its emerged that it was seeking new investment. He said: "I'm aware that I haven't seen a great deal of the publishing community over the last few months but I am looking forward to re-engaging and talking to them about selling more books."

THE ARCHIVE TAKES ALL THIS WITH A PINCH OF SALT - My own experience with Borders these last couple of years has sadly not been positive - books that had been ordered failed to arrive, certain titles were not put on display and for some reason kept behind the counter and we're not talking porn here, some of the staff knew nothing about books and one or two of them looked at me blankly when I requested certain authors Nevertheless I was gutted to see my local Borders close down as I used to to get import magazines that were not available elsewhere.