What a relief that HMV are now gone from W. Lets hope the new MD Daunt does what he says and listen to the staff. There is a lot of potential from the staff. They are on the front row and they are the people who will be able to turn rounf the damage that HMV have done to W and Ottakars.

James Listen to your staff - from the smallest store to the largest, these people are the people who run the empire that you now sit on top.

apologies for the spelling mistake, should have been "their" instead of "there". :-)

once this initial euphoria has dispersed the down-trodden and bullied staff have a very long climb out of the pit of doom if they want to be as good as the Chain Bookseller of the Year 2011 - Sainsbury's.

Hey minime - there's nothing wrong with those purple t-shirts! Sainsbury's gave me a job when the book trade turfed me out; and I've never been asked to attempt to sell things to people that they don't want or are inappropriate for them. Try it before you trash it.

Yes this is fantastic news for the booktrade . It is just like the aquisition of Chelsea FC by his Russian mate was great for the Premier league.
There is now no real need to worry about return on funds so lets get on with stocking up [great for publishers] , not closing any branches [!] great for staff the public and landlords, and having a relaxed view of profitability . It is ages since the trade had a uncommercially funded [not uncommercially managed ] business . Maybe Foyles latterly under Christina but not since . I think a liberally funded Waterstones will be great and I have blood in that business via Dillons,so I do care . Lets not pretend , however, that this is not going to be profitable in the pure sense of the word, I bet the ROC will be akin to a charity .

Julian, I disagree that there won't now be pressure and worry to get a return on funds.

The more one considers the actual purchase terms, especially over pension fund liabilities, the shrewder the deal becomes ; this wasn't somebody tossing money in the air just to be seen as a generous benefactor.

Any publisher/supplier who is foolhardy enough to think that Alexander Mamut's Waterstone's is going to be a soft touch will almost certainly have a costly experience.

Yes, this purchase is fantastic news for the high street booktrade. (The rich man's strength is his castle, the poor man's poverty its destruction).

I hope they'll immediately rip off those revolting Barbie-pink POS in the shops. There is so much stuff attached to shelves and tables now you can't get to the books. Then the Hub should go, as well as central ordering. In our branch we have dozens of Collins verb,grammar books, dictionaries etc. which NO ONE buys, but headoffice had obviously made some wizard deal with them. Booksellers know best what customers in their own town/region need in their sections. The obsession with making booksellers read endless missives, instructions and demand they make lists of sales figures etc. etc should end. We have eyes and we listen to our customers, we know what people like, what they buy etc. In the last few weeks I've made more excuses for NOT being able to supply books than actually selling them. Last time I looked daily sales figures were down by a quarter in our branch - how surprising when half the stock has been returned and the front of house has turned into a card shop. Actually, to be a quarter down in sales when half the stock is missing means that we are actually quite good at selling books! How surprising is that?
HMV must stand for Horribly Mismanaged Venture!

I am rather surprised that just about every serious commentator in this thread assumes that all the problems of this chain have suddenly disappeared in a bright new morning, glistening in the largesse of Mr Mamut's cash dispensed with Mr Daunt's wisdom. What is more, each contributor reads into the future their own solutions, ranging from discarding pink t-shirts to the restoration of literary palaces which will bring throngs of learned and committed book-buyers rushing back to Waterstones eager to part with fifty pound notes. Let me underline the reality: the problem is not Waterstones, it is the business context. A return to the well-stocked high end literary salon model of the 1990s golden years staffed by enthusiastic arts graduates is not an option and would simply compound the decline of footfall and turnover. One wonders whether any owner will have unlimited patience with unlimited red ink, however committed to books they are. A merciless strategy will be needed to dispose of the poor performers in the estate. Publishers can expect some very hard demands for yet greater margin, which will have to be taken seriously as this really is the last, last chance saloon for their major high street showcase for books. They know how close the chain came to closure in the past few months. The new management will quickly have to put in place exciting, integrated and credible strategies for e-books and internet selling, as they are all but too late to make up the vast ground lost over many years to Amazon, Apple, Google, Tesco and Sainsburys as well confronting the time drift of book readers to new media. All this in a long retail recession while trying to understand and attract customers in hundreds of locations with different socio-economic and demographic profiles who are today familiar with a promiscuous approach to media, often for no charge. It is a list which will demand innovative and radical new strategies in marketing, supply chain, IT, personnel, locations, operations and digital strategy: in short a complete makeover of nearly every aspect of the chain. If I may pun, these are daunting challenges and no one should be under any illusions. Tough decisions will have to be taken speedily. So, a modestly warm welcome but don't crack open the Bolly just yet...