Borders To Cut Prices On Kobo, Aluratek E-Book Readers
August 31 2010 - 12:45PM
Dow Jones News
Borders Group Inc. (BGP) will cut prices on two of its
electronic-book readers by about $20 on Wednesday, as the
struggling bookstore chain tries to gain a foothold for its
fledgling e-book initiative amid fierce competition.
Its Kobo reader, powered by Canada's Kobo Inc., in which Borders
has an equity stake, will drop to $129.99 from $149.99 and its
Aluratek Libre reader will go to $99.99 from $119.99 apiece. The
devices aim to compete with more popular, and more expensive,
offerings like Amazon.com Inc.'s (AMZN) Kindle, Barnes & Noble
Inc.'s (BKS) Nook and the Apple Inc. (AAPL) iPad, and follow price
cuts on the Nook and Kindle earlier this summer.
Borders has struggled with eroding sales and a flagging share
price while paring down debt to levels it hopes will allow it to
survive in the poor economy against better-positioned rivals. It
will release fiscal-second-quarter earnings Wednesday morning, and
investors will look to see if it's suffering similar store-traffic
declines as Barnes & Noble, itself dealing with a proxy contest
involving investor Ron Burkle's Yucaipa Cos. while it explores
options to inject value into its slumping stock.
When Borders announced its branded e-book store in early July,
it set the ambitious goal of 17% market share in a year's time.
Barnes & Noble said last Tuesday it had already captured over
17% of the market, giving it better market share in e-books than it
has in physical books.
Borders President Mike Edwards said in an interview that it's
too early to tell what level of market penetration Borders has,
given the newness of the business, but he said the price cuts don't
"have anything to do with pricing in the marketplace." Borders
knows achieving its market-share goal is "entirely contingent on
selling devices," Edwards said, and it wanted to make sure it had
an offering priced below $100 to attract customers.
Edwards declined to discuss specifics of Borders' results before
Wednesday's news release and subsequent conference call, but said
major investor Bennett LeBow won't be speaking on the call. The
reclusive LeBow is chairman of Liggett tobacco owner Vector Group
Ltd. (VGR) and is now chairman and chief executive of Borders. He
made a $25 million investment in Borders group this year that could
see him invest another nearly $79 million to amass a 35% equity
stake.
In addition to 11.1 million Borders common shares, LeBow
received warrants to buy 35.1 shares at $2.25 apiece, more than
double the $1.11 that Borders fetched in light and unchanged
Tuesday trading. Edwards said Borders has modeled LeBow converting
his warrants into its financial plans, but said any delay in
conversion isn't material to its operations compared to its issues
with managing inventory, coping with a large debt load and dealing
with underperforming stores.
-By Maxwell Murphy, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2171;
maxwell.murphy@dowjones.com
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