US book chain Borders is on the brink of liquidation after the collapse of a deal with the Najafi investment firm aimed at saving the bankrupt company, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.
At the start of this month Borders had designated Najafi as the opening bidder in a looming bankruptcy court action, but that deal has reportedly fallen through because of objections by publishers and landlords.
The Journal said the critics of the deal, who are owed money by Borders, had complained that the Najafi bid would allow it to liquidate the bookstore chain.
The Najafi group had offered US$215 million for Borders and an assumption of US$220 million in liabilities, but a creditors’ committee said an offer of US$252 million from a liquidators’ group amounted to a better deal, the Journal said.
The book chain has since appointed the liquidators as the opening bidders in the auction set for Tuesday.
Borders president Mike Edwards confirmed that Najafi had withdrawn its bid and liquidators were circling, while expressing hope that other bidders would emerge to save the company, the Journal said, citing a letter to employees.
The development raises the likelihood that Borders will soon have to close its remaining 399 stores, lay off about 11,000 people and go out of business, the newspaper reported.
Borders has shut down 200 locations since it filed for bankruptcy in February, but is reportedly still bleeding revenue.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day