Borders files for bankruptcy protection, will lay off 6,000

The No. 2 U.S. bookseller, which operates namesake superstores as well as the smaller Waldenbooks chain, has contended with double-digit comparable sales declines for two years.

Here are some key dates in Borders' history:

1971:
Tom and Louis Border found Borders Book Shop in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

1992:
Kmart buys Borders, then a Michigan-based chain of 21 book superstores in the Midwest and Northeast. In 1984, KMart buys Waldenbooks.

1995:
Kmart spins off Borders-Walden Group in an IPO and changes its name to Borders Group.

1997:
Announces plans for an international superstore chain that would have 1,000 locations. At that point, it had 203 stores.

1998:
Launches Borders Online, but analysts fault it for being late to embrace e-commerce.

1999:
April: Company buys toy retailer All Wound Up, a deal that harms its liquidity. The plan foretells Borders' intention to expand its toys and games selection in late 2010 to diversify its offerings.

2000:
March: Hires Merrill Lynch & Co to review options, including a recapitalization, leveraged buyout or combination with another company.

2001:
April: Announces a deal with Amazon.com Inc to relaunch Borders' money-losing e-commerce site and feature Amazon.com's books and music offerings.

2006:

Bill Ackman's Pershing Square takes 11 percent stake in Borders, saying its shares are undervalued and could rise to $36 from $23.92. Ackman says fears of the threat from online retailer Amazon.com are "exaggerated."

2008:
March: Says it might put itself up for sale, but never finds a buyer. It also gets $42.5 million loan from Ackman's firm and says it would have faced imminent liquidity problems without it.

May: Barnes & Noble puts together a team to look at a merger with Borders. Separately, Borders launched its own web site.

2009:

April: Says it expects only 50-60 of its Waldenbooks stores to survive in the long term. It had 564 in 2006.

2010:

Jan 28: Announces cuts of 10 percent of corporate jobs.

March 31: Repays $42.5 million loan to Pershing Square, gets more credit and posts a profit on cost cuts. Shares jump.

July 7: Launches e-book store, eight months after Barnes & Noble.

December 6: Ackman offers to finance a merger with larger rival Barnes & Noble Inc..

2011
January 27: Borders says it gets conditional refinancing commitment from GE Capital and warns it may seek an "in court restructuring," meaning a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.

January 30: Borders says it is delaying payment to vendors and landlords, among other creditors.

February 4: Borders gets warning from New York Stock Exchange about low share price, says it could be delisted.

February 16: Borders files for Ch. 11 bankruptcy protection in Manhattan.

Illinois businesses cutting more than 650 employees

(Crain’s)—Seven Illinois companies notified the state of plans to cut a total of more than 650 jobs by the end of March, an increase from layoffs announced a month earlier.

Gray Interplant Systems Inc. accounts for the most losses. The Peoria-based warehousing and storage company will cut 167 employees, according to a monthly Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act report released by the Illinois Department of Employment Security. The state law, known as WARN, requires firms with at least 75 employees to give 60 days’ notice of closings or large layoffs.

Only one of the seven companies, Gold Standard Baking Inc., is based in Chicago. A manufacturer of fresh and frozen baked goods that was acquired by Chicago’s Arbor Investments in 2008, Gold Standard will let 73 workers go when the company shuts down permanently in March. Calls to the bakery and to Arbor Investments were not immediately returned.

Two Kmart stores, in Franklin Park and Downstate Washington, are closing and will shed 163 jobs collectively; Kmart is a unit of Hoffman Estates-based Sears Holdings Corp. Itasca-based C. D. Listening Bar Inc., a durable goods wholesaler that does business as DeepDiscount.com, will lay off 67 employees, and Doumak, a Bensenville chocolate confectionery, will cut 60 people temporarily as it installs new equipment.

Other employers reporting layoffs are AGI North America LLC, a Downstate Jacksonville-based manufacturer of paperboard boxes that is laying off 70 employees, and Houston-based Dynegy Inc., which is dismissing 53 workers at its Vermillion power plant in Downstate Oakwood.

In its previous report, the state said 495 employees would lose their jobs at four businesses by the end of February.