Bank Repossession

When RED Group, the owner of Angus & Robertson and Borders locally and Whitcoulls in New Zealand (amounting to about 260 shops), opted on Thursday for voluntary administration , it blamed increasing online sales and Australia's territorial copyright laws for its problems. Borders plans to operate normally and honour gift cards and its loyalty program as it reorganises. But it is left to be seen how this will get managed Borders, whose market value has shrunk by more than $3 billion since 1998, racked up losses by failing to adapt to shifts in how consumers shop Well-known literary gent Jerry Seinfeld summed up the importance of bookshops. ''A bookstore,'' he said, ''is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.'' Now the people who run them will have to do the thinking. Australian book chains Borders, Angus & Robertson and the Whitcoulls chain of newsagencies in New Zealand have been placed in...