Borders will axe 200 Waldenbooks stores, 1,500 jobs
Filed under: Company News, Media
Borders (BGP) announced Thursday afternoon that it will close it will close 200 of its WaldenBooks stores by early January, cutting as many as 1,500 jobs, most of them part-time. The move is intended as part of Borders’s ongoing plan to streamline costs and find its way out of a money pit that’s plagued it for years and led to a flurry of executive shuffles.
The shutdown will leave 130 of the mall-based WaldenBooks stores in operation; 45 branches had closed since the end of May.
“We believe there remains an opportunity to profitably operate a much smaller Waldenbooks segment that complements our core Borders superstore business and continues to serve readers in their communities,” Borders CEO Ron Marshall said in a statement. The closings, he said, “will reduce the number of stores with operating losses, reduce our overall rent expense and lease-adjusted leverage, and generate cash flow through sales and working capital reductions.”
The move comes as Barnes & Noble (BKS) prepares to shutter all but two of its smaller, mall-based B. Dalton stores by January, signaling the last nail in the 1980s-era heyday of shopping-mall retail for book chains. But mostly, it’s further indication of Borders’s ongoing financial struggles: the company almost lost its place on the NYSE this year. Its stock rose 1.44% to $2.11 per share in trading today.
Borders will axe 200 Waldenbooks stores, 1,500 jobs originally appeared on DailyFinance on Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Borders will axe 200 Waldenbooks stores, 1,500 jobs
Tags: a-much-smaller, barnes and noble, barnesandnoble, bookstores, borders, comes-as-barnes, indication, net-interest, retail, shopping malls, shoppingmalls, the-mall-based, trading-today-, waldenbooks
Hyatt surges on its first day of trading
Filed under: Company News, Investing
The threat of family feuds and a worldwide slump in hotel reservations couldn’t dampen Hyatt Hotels Corp. (H) on its first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The high-end hotel chain rose more than 12 percent on Thursday after raising $950 million in its initial public offering the prior evening.
What’s driving the strong performance? It certainly doesn’t hurt that the S&P 500 enjoyed its fourth straight day of gains, rising about 1.8 percent. But investors pushed Hyatt’s shares from $25, where they debuted, all the way up to $28 on the strength of its well-known brand and healthy cash flow, analysts say.
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Hyatt surges on its first day of trading originally appeared on DailyFinance on Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Hyatt surges on its first day of trading
Tags: a-much-smaller, analysts-say-, barnes and noble, certainly-doesn, entry, healthy-cash, hyatthotels, its-well-known, news, shoppingmalls, stock-exchange, strong, trading-on-the, trading-today-
