The Bookseller.com

8th January 2009

Neill Denny is editor-in-chief of The Bookseller. He will be blogging on the book business and on how the print magazine is produced each week.

Gunn leaves Blackwell a better place

11.09.08

What a difference a year makes. Last September, Blackwell c.e.o. Vince Gunn was on The Bookseller Retail Awards podium, as the academic bookseller took home the Retail Chain of the Year and overall Bookselling Company of the Year awards. This week Gunn departed by “mutual consent”, to be succeeded by Andrew Hutchings, head of the company’s academic and library supplier Blackwell Book Services.

Last year’s gongs were not given out lightly. Gunn—who joined Blackwell from Mothercare in 2005—injected a considerable amount of energy and forward-thinking into the loss-making bookseller. Under his recovery programme, Blackwell has grown its brand as “The Knowledge Retailer”, solidified its traditional institutional and academic markets, developed its digital programme and invested in tie-ins with such like-minded partners as Oxford University Press.

Critically, Blackwell has been creative: expanding abroad, and being the first British bookseller to invest in instore p.o.d., with the Espresso. After a long period in the doldrums, Blackwell seems to have gained traction.

Yet academic bookselling is perhaps the most precarious sector in the industry, and Blackwell’s numbers are not pretty. Full-year results to the end of June 2007 showed a loss of £7.6m on turnover of £77.2m; the previous year’s losses were £6.9m on a £79.7m turnover. When he brokered the near £600m sale of the profitable Blackwell Publishing to Wiley in 2006—over fierce objection from family members—paterfamilias Toby Blackwell famously said: “I’m a bloody-minded old bastard, and I’m loyal to retail.” Losing £14.5m in two years is perhaps testing even his resolve.

Yet it is unfair on Gunn to mark him solely on last year’s financials. He was brought in to implement a recovery strategy of stabilisation, recovery and expansion. The results will not be felt until the end of this financial year and the next, but Blackwell has been repositioned as a progressive, forward-thinking retailer.

Toby Blackwell’s determination to use his fortune to preserve the family name is admirable. He now says: “I own 100% of the votes in the company and the name will stay above the door from here to eternity.” Yet with a recession biting, the company is crying out for stability—and a retailer with vision and clear direction at the helm. Gunn had those qualities in spades. At least for the sake of Toby’s wallet, let’s hope Hutchings does too.

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