Independent Bookstore Closures Increasing in U.K.
A dismal new report reveals
that independent bookstores in the United Kingdom are closing at the rate of two per week. The Guardian reports:
With independents blaming increased competition from the internet, supermarkets, a declining British high street and the credit crunch for their troubles, figures from the Booksellers Association show that 102 independent stores closed in 2009, leaving just 1,289 left in the UK -- a decline of 27% since 1999. Last year also saw the 45-store book chain Borders fall into administration, while like-for-like sales at Waterstone's were down by 8.5% in the crucial Christmas trading period.
"The current economic climate is undeniably tough and the book retail sector is suffering across the board," said the Booksellers Association's head of membership services Meryl Halls. She called on readers to support independents, saying that those shops which "are fighting so hard to survive continue to deliver an outstanding service – knowing the books they recommend and sell, knowing their customers, focusing on things that the deep price cutters can't offer and running fantastic and value-adding events".
"These booksellers are at the centre of their communities but, as with all retailers, they need to be supported in order to survive," she said.
On the bright side, the Booksellers Association also reported that 40 new independent bookstores opened during 2009, including a foray into bookselling by literary agents Sarah Lutyens and Felicity Rubinstein. They opened a new store in Notting Hill in October.
Borders Closing More Waldenbooks Stores
Borders is increasing the pace at which it is closing Waldenbooks outlets. It will close another 200 stores in January. After all the closings have happened, there will still be approximately 130 Waldenbooks stores in various malls. Airports stores and mall kiosks will be unaffected.
Borders CEO Ron Marshall said that "through this right-sizing, we will reduce the number of stores with operating losses, reduce our overall rent expense and lease-adjusted leverage and generate cash flow through sales and working capital reductions." The closing will result in the elimination of about 1,500 jobs, the majority of which, Borders said, are part-time positions. A company spokesperson said the stores slated for closing "will be fully stocked for the holidays," but will begin clearance sales in mid-December that will run into January. She had no comment on the total amount of sales generated by the stores targeted for closure.
The company also said it plans to integrate the remaining Walden stores into its superstore computer system to create a single platform. Despite attempts to merge the two operations in the past, Borders and Walden have always operated on separate systems, much to the frustration of publishers. The spokesperson said the company hopes to have the stores moved into superstores' inventory and point of sale system within the first quarter.
Soon there won't be any bookstores in malls at all, except for the odd specialty or antique book store and those are few and far between. You can see a full list of the store closings here (it's a .pdf file).
Paris is for Book Lovers
David Turecamo of CBS News takes a fascinating tour of the literary markets of Paris, France. He talks to the vendors, the collectors and the book-obsessed who just can't stop collecting them. There are hundreds of independent book shops in Paris, not counting the street vendors and movable book markets. It's a book lover's paradise. Take a look:
Barnes and Noble Still Considering Borders Purchase
First round bids were due Monday from companies that wish to buy bookseller Borders. Barnes and Noble is one of the companies that is interested. The Financial Times says that Borders has already rejected numerous offers for the company.
On 20 March, Borders announced that it had retained JPMorgan and Merrill Lynch to conduct a strategic review, and on the same day made public a financing commitment with its largest shareholder Pershing Square.
Barnes & Noble is conducting due diligence, but is far from establishing whether it will competitively bid for its largest retailer rival, said the first person, who is close to the situation.
Though Borders has been cooperative in giving [Barnes & Noble] the information they need during due diligence, the latter still has significant work to do before it fully understands whether a merger now is the right decision, the person said.
After deciding whether an acquisition of Borders is advantageous strategically, the company then needs to evaluate whether it can be bought at a fair value. If Barnes & Noble does decide that a deal now is strategically worth pursuing, it still needs to calculate how and if a transaction would pass with government regulators and publishers, the person said. Borders announced last week an agreement to sell its Australasian assets, and cut about 20% of its corporate work force. The person speculated that these events could indicate a very difficult situation at Borders, and that this would prompt another question for Barnes & Noble and any other participant in the sale process: how much will Borders’ financial position deteriorate before a deal is made?
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Currently, Barnes & Noble is assessing whether the costs associated with the business are worth the upside of a deal, the first person said. Borders' enterprise value, currently about USD 935m, will be a sizeable deal for Barnes & Noble, which has a market capitalization of USD 1.65bn. "The size, relative to Barnes & Noble, is not the type of thing most companies would do ... and that's not factoring in the costs of rationalizing the business, so the upside really has to be good to warrant it," the person noted. With Pershing as Barnes & Noble's second largest shareholder - and Borders largest shareholder - Barnes & Noble needs to "assure shareholders that they have looked and considered" a deal, the person said.
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Publishers are unlikely to greet a merger of the two largest retailers in the industry with open arms, and Borders can actually use this dynamic to its advantage by extracting concessions out of these parties, the first person explained. This would free up further capital for its restructuring effort.
If Barnes and Noble buys Borders, you know what will happen.
There will be massive layoffs, a consolidation and then there will eventually be only one major bookchain -- other than Books a Million -- left. Look for many more bookstore closings in the future.
Bookstores Hard Hit by Katrina
Publishers Weekly has an article about how bookstores in the New Orleans, Mississippi and Alabama are faring after the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. They were unable to reach most of the bookstores but some have been destroyed or flooded.
Most of the several dozen stores are still unreachable by phone, either because of downed lines or evacuations. But as noted by Lyn Roberts at Square Books in Oxford, Miss., (which was not hit hard by the storm), most of the independent bookstores are close to the beach, leading her to fear the worse.
A spokesperson at B&N in NY says employees at New Orleans stores (there are six) can't be reached, likely, also, because of evacuations. The country's three major bookstore chains have a total of about a dozen stores in and around New Orleans, and the status of outlets was unclear as of this morning. B&N and Borders both have stores that are in areas in the city hard hit by the storm. The Books-A-Million outlet in Biloxi sat a few blocks from the gulf.
The situation is so bad in New Orleans that bookstores there may not have customers for months even if they survived the flooding. Our BloggersBlog.com website has a collection of Hurricane Katrina links and resources for people looking for more information.
