As Borders winds down its bankruptcy, the company is about to complete the sale of one of its most valuable assets: its interest in Kobo. Borders owns 10% of Kobo's common stock and it has decided to participate in the November purchase agreement announced by Japan's Rakuten Inc., to acquire Kobo for $315 million. Borders's share of the sale is valued at between $27.5 and $32 million. In a filing Borders seeks to participate in the SPA rather than auction its shares. A hearing before Judge Martin Glenn of U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan to approve the sale was originally scheduled for December 20, but has been moved up to December 6.
Slated for the court’s December 20 docket is the sale of the last piece of Borders’s intellectual property, its Internet addresses. The retailer reached an agreement earlier this week with Cerner Corporation for $786,432, or $12/per address, the most ever paid for a publicized sale of Internet addresses.
