Taken from DMNews
Borders explores strategic alternatives & new site launch
Borders Group Inc. has said it will explore strategic alternatives, including a possible sale of certain divisions or of the entire company.
The company is “taking stock of where it is and where it wants to go,” said Anne Roman, corporate affairs director at Borders. She added that, as Borders considers some new initiatives, such as its recently opened concept stores and the upcoming launch of a stand-alone e-commerce site, it “wants to make sure there is financial flexibility for those things going forward.”
After partnering with Amazon.com for an e-commerce site for several years, Borders has said it will launch an independent site by the end of its fiscal first quarter, which ends on May 3. The recent announcement regarding exploring strategic alternatives should not impact this time frame, Roman said.
The announcement is really about exploring a wide range of alternatives, Roman insisted, including the possible sale of Borders's UK-based Paperchase division. Paperchase is a gift and stationery business with 100 locations in the UK and 300 shops within Borders stores.
A potential deal might also include the sale of Borders international operations, Roman said.
As part of a $42.5 million financing commitment from Borders stockholder Pershing Square that was also announced, the latter has agreed to a backstop purchase that will give Borders the right to require Pershing Square to purchase its Paperchase Australia, New Zealand and Singapore subsidiaries as well as its approximately 17% interest in Borders UK for $125 million.
Borders also reported financial results, indicating that consolidated sales totaled $1.3 billion in the fourth quarter. Excluding the impact of the extra week during fiscal 2006, this represents a 2.8% increase over the same period a year ago.
Sales at domestic Borders superstores during the fourth quarter totaled $957.8 million. Excluding the impact of the extra week during fiscal 2006, this represents an increase of 5.1% over the prior year. On a comparable store basis, transactions increased by 1% for the fourth quarter and same-store sales in the segment increased for the period by 2.1%.
For the full year, Borders Group's consolidated sales totaled $3.8 billion. Excluding the impact of the extra week during fiscal 2006, this represents a 4.2% increase over the prior year.
Sales at Borders domestic superstores for the full year totaled $2.8 billion. Excluding the impact of the extra week during fiscal 2006, this represents an increase of 5.3% over the prior year. Same-store sales for 2007 were up 1.5% in the segment.
Sales within the Waldenbooks specialty retail segment were down 17% in the fourth quarter for a total of $228.3 million. Same-store sales increased 1.2% during the same period.
For the full year, sales in the segment totaled $562.8 million, which when adjusted for the extra week in 2006, represents a decrease of 14.1%. The company closed 75 underperforming Waldenbooks stores in 2007 and will continue to aggressively close Waldenbooks locations that are not achieving targeted returns. Same-store sales increased 2.2% for the full year.
International sales totaled $138.5 million in the fourth quarter, up 34.6% compared to the same period a year ago. For the full year, international sales totaled $364.8 million, up 37.2%.
Monday, March 24, 2008
More Borders News
Happy Feet - Shoes To Consider (Part 1)
I wasn't blessed with the best feet in the world. Mine are sensitive, and the bottoms of my feet tire rather easily. Standing or walking for long periods of time is my personal Kryptonite. If you are picky about what you place on your feet or are sensitive to footwear like I am, I would urge you to checkout the following products.
Type: Business or Casual
Brand: Johnston & Murphy
Style: Shuler
Price: $125.00
These are easily the most comfortable shoes I have ever worn! The best way I can describe them is that they are like slipping your feet into soft formed butter - but don't worry they're not messy at all!
I purchased my first pair a couple of years ago at a local Johnston & Murphy store. I actually went in there looking for a "dressy" pair of boots when the sales person asked if I would be willing to try on the most comfortable shoes known to man - he was right. I purchased them on the spot - a tan pair of "athletic" style Shulers that have since been discontinued.
I loved them so much that I returned a few weeks later to get a pair in black, this time opting for the "bicycle" style shown in the above photo.
Not only are these extremely comfortable, they are stylish and look great with slacks in the office or tooling around the town in jeans. They have that popular over-sized look, but in a subtle way that is not bodacious like some of the other designs you may have seen or owned.
If you attend trade shows, these are perfect for making the long days walking a show or standing in a booth tolerable.
Simply put, these get my highest recommendation.
This Could Really Help Bolster The Economy...
Taken from DMNews iMarketing News
NY bill threatens online ads
Microsoft, Google and AOL are getting ready to meet with New York assemblyman Richard Brodsky, a Democrat from Westchester County, to discuss a privacy bill that he is developing, which could have strong implications for the online advertising industry.
“The bill is very broad and it would make a lot of legitimate practices illegal. [It] would basically make ad networks illegal,” said Mike Zaneis, VP of public policy at the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB). “Publishers usually offer up thousands of ad impressions into an ad exchange, which are bid on by dozens of entities in real time.”
The bill would also mandate that all relationships between publishers and advertisers be contractual. Some Internet advertisers feel that, if a contract is required, it may slow down the process and exchanges that take place in an automated ad exchange.
Brodsky's office is meeting with these Internet giants to discuss and help finalize the proposal, which was based in part on the best practice guidelines set by the Network Advertising Initiative, a group of online marketing and analytics companies. Yahoo met with the Assemblyman last fall.
“We are looking to clean up the language and are looking to these companies in the industry to tell us what they think,” said Kent Sopris, legislative director at Brodsky's office.
The bill first came to life last June in response to Google's offer to acquire DoubleClick, which, after a series of reviews, has been approved.
“Assemblyman Brodsky was not satisfied with the focus of privacy that the [Federal Trade Commission] was looking at and wanted to make sure that a big company like Google cannot track a consumer's behavior and then target them with advertising based on these ads,” Sopris explained.
Google, Yahoo and Microsoft did not return phone calls for comment. AOL declined to comment on the proposed bill until it meets with Brodsky.
The IAB is pushing for consumer and legislator education about how online advertising technologies work and the benefits that it can have for consumers.
“While it claims to be looking out for consumers, this bill is not consumer friendly,” Zaneis said. “Advertising is the engine that drives the Internet today. It pays for free services and content for consumers.”
John Ardis, VP of corporate strategy at ValueClick, agreed, “The problem with this kind of legislation is that while it usually starts with good intentions, without a fuller understanding of how some of these things work, it can cause unexpected harm to both consumers and the direct marketing industry.”
ValueClick itself was just fined $2.9 billion in a settlement with the FTC regarding a complaint for allegedly violating CAN-SPAM. (See story, P4)
According to Ardis, raising questions about online privacy may lead legislators to consider direct mail and telemarketing, where much more personal information is tracked. “The focus should be on protecting data,” he said.
But not everyone in the industry thinks that this proposal is bad. Quinn Jalli, chief privacy officer at Datran Media, which was fined $1.1 million in March 2006 to settle a lawsuit brought about by former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer concerning a privacy breach, said that the industry should have seen this coming.
“We as marketers need to remember that at the end of the day, our business is about serving consumers,” he said. “From an industry perspective we should be thinking about giving the best consumer experience possible and making it easy for them to opt out.”
Still, Jalli said he thinks that legislators should use language that would prevent the prohibition of behavioral targeting.
While Sopris did not say how the bill would be enforced, he did say that it could go further than New York. The bill could be especially problematic for those businesses that do online business across state lines and globally.
“This could be the impetus for a larger federal piece of legislation, but that's something we'll have to wait and see about,” he said.
Connecticut is also proposing a similar bill in the current assembly session. In an e-mail to DMNews, Jerry Farrell Jr., commissioner of consumer protection in Connecticut, said “Connecticut has not passed a law barring the tracking of consumer behavior online. There are legislative proposals that have been made that would deal with some aspects of such tracking. But, at this point, they are strictly proposals and would need to work their way through the legislature by early May, in order to become law.”
The proposed New York bill is currently in the Consumer Affairs Committee, and will be sent to the floor when the proposal has been finalized.
The issue of consumer privacy online is not a new one. Last November, the FTC met with nine privacy organizations, including the Center for Democracy and Technology, Consumer Action, Consumer Federation of America, Public Information Research, Privacy Journal and World Privacy Forum, about implementing a do-not-track list that would protect consumers from having their online activities tracked, stored and used by marketers and advertising networks without their knowledge.
The list would require advertisers that use tracking technologies on consumers' computers to register with the FTC all domain names of the servers involved in the tracking. There is currently a cookie available from the FTC that consumers can download to see individual sites' tracking habits. No legislative action on this proposal has been taken yet.
