When Borders filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last February, it had until mid-June to submit its own reorganization plan. Now a judge has given the company an extension.
Joseph Checkler of the Wall Street Journal says such requests are routine:
A judge on Thursday gave Borders Group Inc. more time to control its own bankruptcy case, after a lawyer for the bookseller said the company hopes to have a plan in place to sell most or all of the company's stores by the end of the month. A lawyer for Borders didn't rule out that the company could eventually come up with a plan to reorganize but said a plan to sell stores to a third party is more imminent. The company says it is in talks with "multiple buyers" interested in "most up to all" of Borders's remaining stores. Judge Martin Glenn of U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan approved the extension, a largely procedural move that gives Borders until October to file a reorganization plan and until December to solicit votes on that plan without having to worry about competing proposals from creditors or others.
The Journal reported that the private-equity firm Gores Group is interested in buying more than half the remaining 405 Borders Bookstores.
A lawyer for Borders said the company expects to announce a buyer in the next "two to four weeks."