“After a lengthy auction stretching over two days, a federal bankruptcy judge on Friday approved the sale of California-based Tower Records to Great American Group, which plans to liquidate the music retailer,” Randall Chase reports for The Associated Press. “After almost 30 hours of what attorneys described as ‘robust’ and ‘vigorous’ bidding, Great American won with a bid of $134.3 million, beating Trans World Entertainment, which had hoped to continue operating at least some Tower stores, by a single bid increment of $500,000.”

“Peter Gurfein said Great American plans to begin the liquidation process and going out of business sales on Saturday, which eventually will result in the elimination of the jobs of some 3,000 Tower employees… Tower Records, which has 89 stores in 20 states and owes creditors about $200 million, filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in August. In its filing, the company said it has been hurt by an industrywide decline in music sales, downloading of online music and competition from big-box stores such as Wal-Mart,” Chase reports.

Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Tommy Boy" for the heads up.]
The old makes way for the new. Apple’s iTunes Store music sales passed the likes of Borders, Sam Goody, and Tower Records, NPD reported in November 2005. Note: last Tuesday, Napster Inc. said it had launched an online song distribution site in Japan in a joint venture between America’s Napster and Tower Records Japan, Inc., which, from what we can tell and despite the name, is a separate company from the Tower Records that’s about to be liquidated. NTT DoCoMo Inc., a Japanese mobile operator, is the main shareholder in the Tower Records Japan, Inc. owning an approximate 40% of the company.

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