Stay informed with free updates
Simply log in to Retail trade and consumer industry myFT summary — delivered straight to your inbox.
James Daunt, head of Barnes & Noble in the US and Waterstones in the UK, plans to open dozens more bookshops this year with an eye on potential combined sales in London or New York in the future.
Daunt said about 60 stores will be added to Barnes & Noble in the U.S., which already has about 1,000 stores nationwide. The British-born bookseller has overseen the opening of 57 stores in the US and 12 in the UK in 2024 – which he called a “really significant expansion” – with plans to “do that or more in 2025”.
Water stones Russian billionaire Alexander Mamut sold in 2018 to Elliott, a private equity group, and Barnes & Noble, a major US company, was bought by Paul Singer’s investment management firm in 2019.
Daunt still controls its independent British book chain of the same name, but it is not owned by Elliott.
He has run Waterstones since 2011 and has managed to withstand the challenge posed by Amazon, which sells books both direct to consumers and also through its Kindle. Other rivals such as Foyles, Hatchards and Blackwell’s have also been since bought by Waterstonesmaking the combined Elliott-owned entities the largest bookstore book seller on both sides of the Atlantic.
Daunt said it would be “logical” to look at an initial public offering consolidated deals in the future, although any decision would depend on Elliott’s strategy. A person close to the fund manager said there were no current plans to list the chains, but that it would be an option in the future.
For now, Daunt said he is focused on bringing together the IT and financial systems at Barnes & Noble and Waterstones on one platform.
Daunt predicted another successful holiday season for the bookseller, boosted by the final trading weekend before Christmas.
The holiday season has been good for last-minute shoppers, Daunt said, with many expected to wait until the weekend before Christmas to find their gifts.
“If you’re in the ‘last minute’ game — and we are to some extent — then[ . . .]it was a solid Christmas that was delayed by the fall of the calendar,” he said. “Last weekend and [December] 23-24 were exceptional on both sides of the Atlantic. It was also a good post-Christmas.”
He said there is no clear best-selling genre this year, with sales breaking down by category. Booksellers usually see a dip after the January sales period, but Daunt said a new book by popular fantasy author Rebecca Yarros was expected to boost business at the end of the month.
Daunt said wage inflation was “really significant” for business, but backed the UK government’s move to increase the cost of national insurance, which was opposed by many executives in the retail and consumer goods sectors.
Instead, he said the most significant issue for Waterstones in the UK was Brexit: “It remains the biggest pain point, adding cost and complexity and making our working situation worse.”
