Borderline

I used my Borders Books birthday gift-card recently, deciding that I'd better not wait, given the bookseller's current and worsening woes. Not that any bookseller is on easy street these days, but Borders's rough patch seems especially rocky. Borders Group today announced that sales in the nine-week holiday period ending Jan. 3 fell 11.7 percent from the previous year.

Meanwhile, the company was advised by the New York Stock Exchange that its stock is in danger of being delisted, since its closing share price has been below $1 for more than 30 days. To remain on the exchange, the company has to get its share price up for a 30-day period within six months of the warning. This morning, shares are selling at 43 cents.

Forty-three cents? Why would investors dump a stock to that extent unless they thought the company was a dead duck?

Borders today also fired CEO George Jones and replaced him with Ron Marshall, a private equity guy with some previous book experience. Chairman Larry Pollock said in the announcement that progress has been made to "reduce debt, improve cash flow, cut expenses, enhance inventory productivity and improve margins, but it is imperative that the company more aggressively attack these initiatives to address its long-tern future." You could call it the Marshall Plan, one supposes. Missing from this list, perhaps tellingly, is "sell more books."