Borders, a 40-year-old book seller, is seeking approval to liquidate after it could not get any bids to keep it in business.
The chain, with 399 stores in total, including 15 in Massachusetts, could start liquidation as soon as Friday if the judge approves their bid in court on Thursday.
Borders will ask the Bankruptcy Court of the Southern District of New York to allow it to be sold to liquidators, including Hilco Merchant Resources and Gordon Brothers Group of Boston. The company could go out of business as soon as September.
Liquidators will dissolve the lease agreements Borders had with its landlords and auction them off in two rounds, scheduled for August and September, according to DJM Realty, a unit of Gordon Brothers.
“We are in the middle of a having a lot of conversations with retailers, and some landlords wanted their spaces back,” said DJM copresident Andrew Graiser, according to the Boston Globe. “It’s early, but there’s certainly some good interest in a number of these locations.”
Several locations in Massachusetts, including the stores at Downtown Crossings, CambridgeSide Galleria, Legacy Place in Dedham, Mansfield Crossing, Marlborough, Methuen, North Attleborough and Kingston are expected to be auctioned.
Borders attempted to stay in business with a $215 million “white knight” bid by Najafi Cos., but the bid dissolved when creditors and lenders objected to the deal, arguing that the chain would be worth more if it liquidated immediately.
‘‘We were all working hard toward a different outcome, but the headwinds we have been facing for quite some time, including the rapidly changing book industry, e-reader revolution, and turbulent economy, have brought us to where we are now,’’ Borders Group president Mike Edwards said in a statement.
Borders currently employs 10,700 people, all of whom will soon be out of a job if liquidation occurs.
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