Detroit News: Ex-Borders CEO: Liquidation announcement 'most humiliating moment of my career'

By Nathan Bomey Business news director

Posted on Thu, Sep 15, 2011 : 10:49 a.m.

When Borders Inc. CEO Mike Edwards had to tell employees that the 40-year-old Ann Arbor-based bookstore chain had decided to liquidate, he couldn't help but get emotional, according to the Detroit News.

"It was the hardest, most humiliating moment of my career," Edwards told the Detroit News in a going-away interview. "I felt sick."

Former Borders CEO Mike Edwards

Melanie Maxwell | AnnArbor.com

In a wide-ranging discussion, Edwards describes the company's attempts to avoid Chapter 11 bankruptcy as "like the Cuban missile crisis," said the retailer could have been profitable if its stores were smaller and said he's already gotten job offers.

Less than two weeks after Borders announced its liquidation in July, Edwards was "voluntarily terminated" as president of Borders Group Inc. and CEO of its bookselling subsidiary Borders Inc.

He recently declined an AnnArbor.com interview request sent through social media, saying he was "moving back to the West Coast and getting on with my life." A U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge recently approved a $125,000 severance payment to Edwards.

In the interview with the Detroit News, Edwards said it was frustrating to see Borders fall into disrepair.

"It was like finding out your best friend has cancer and there's nothing you can do," said said Edwards, who spent about two years as a Borders executive and about one as CEO of the bookselling unit. "We were in perpetual crisis."

Read the full story in the Detroit News.

Contact AnnArbor.com's Nathan Bomey at (734) 623-2587 or nathanbomey@annarbor.com. You can also follow him on Twitter or subscribe to AnnArbor.com's newsletters.

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