Staff in the 72 Borders shops will be demoralised and demotivated, so Fox's Waterstone's chain has the chance to take market share and re-establish its credentials as the first place shoppers think of to buy books.
He will want to move very quickly to make up ground before another bookseller picks up the Borders stores.
It is hard to imagine that entrepreneur Tim Waterstone will not take a look at Borders, especially since a sale of his Early Learning Centre chain is on the cards. There is also a chance that Ottakar's founder James Heneage might relish the chance to make a bookselling comeback. That's assuming he has no non-compete obligations following the sale of Ottakar's to Waterstone's.
Waterstone's market share means there is no chance that it could acquire the Borders business. It is possible that no buyer will be found at all, but Fox must assume he will eventually face a new bookselling rival. In the meantime, he should lace up his boots and give Borders a good kicking.
Wednesday's Budget, one of the most overtly political in memory, didn't do much for retailers.
The apparent giveaway in the headline-grabbing tax cuts was balanced by all sorts of other changes elsewhere in the system. Therefore, it's unlikely that many shoppers will feel they have more disposable income.
Unusually for a Labour government, some of the least well-off may come out worst from the Budget.
At a finance directors' lunch held yesterday by Retail Week and BDO Stoy Hayward, some attendees feared it would be their own store staff and warehouse workers who would be adversely affected, making the perennial problem of finding and retaining employees even more difficult.
The Chancellor may be pleased with his performance, but as far as retailers are concerned, he could have done a lot better.
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