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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,〔(Borders Reaches Agreement to Sell Australia/New Zealand/Singapore Business to A&R Whitecoulis ), ''Borders.com''〕 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 17 July 2011. On February 16, 2011, Borders applied for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and began liquidating 226 of its stores in the United States. Despite a purchase offer from the private-equity firm Najafi Companies, Borders was not able to find a buyer acceptable to its creditors 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.〔(Borders Facebook page with list of store closings )〕 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. ==History== The original Borders bookstore was located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where it was founded in 1971 by brothers Tom and Louis Borders during their undergraduate and graduate years at the University of Michigan. The Borders brothers' inventory system tailored each store's offerings to its community. A sister company, Book Inventory Systems (BIS) (1976–1994), was founded to serve as a wholesaler for and provide the brothers' custom inventory system to regional independent bookstores such as John Rollins, Thackeray's, Schuler Books, and Joseph-Beth Booksellers. Former Hickory Farms president Robert F. DiRomualdo was hired in 1989 to expand the company. The first Borders bookshop, with a meager stock of used books, was located in two rooms above 209 State Street, north of the State Theater. From there the brothers soon moved, briefly, to a tiny ground floor + mezzanine operation in the Maynard House apartment building, on the southwest corner of William and Maynard Streets. In 1975, they bought out the stock of Wahr's, an 80-year-old bookstore that was ending business at 316 South State, and hired Michael Hildebrand and Harvey James Robin to stock it with rare books and manage the old shop. Hildebrand had managed Gibson's used and rare book department in East Lansing for years and Harvey Robin had been a local restorer of rare books, who moved his bindery upstairs. Wahr's had been mainly a textbook and school supplies vendor, but the brothers did not deal in textbooks. They moved the retail bookshop to much larger quarters that had become available across State Street, in the former location of the Wagner & Son men's clothing store. The old shop was renamed Charing Cross Bookshop and Tom Frick was sent over from the new bookshop to help. The chain's flagship store was in downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan at the corner of Liberty and Maynard Streets, in the building once occupied by the defunct Jacobson's Department Store. Although not the original location, it was identified as "Borders #1" because it was the flagship store.〔(Boarding up Borders ). July 24, 2011〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Borders Group」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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