How wonderful to return home late on a Friday night to some good news for the UK's book buying public. Thanks to the the ever reliable Book2book's communications, we now know that Borders UK has a new investor and it won't disappear into the ever generic and bland high street's modus operandi of book selling.
Book2book linked to an article in Publishing News that tells us that Risk Capital Partners has had their bid accepted by Borders US and that is good news!
Risk Capital Partners, to quote from their site, is "a team of four individuals investing their own money in private equity transactions. We are entrepreneurial investors with a good understanding and track record across a range of consumer, retail, leisure and support services businesses." Notice the key word here: "entrepreneurial". Entrepreneurs think differently; they don't boringly follow the established business models, they see gaps and opportunities in the market and then exploit them, creating successful businesses.
You only have to look at the make-up of the four investors that are "Risk Capital Partners" to get the picture. Luke Johnson is probably their biggest name, currently the Chairman of Channel Four (a bit of a trial of a job during the last year) and sitting on the board of various other companies, he's also the man that bought PizzaExpress and took it into public ownership, he also brought Belgian cuisine to London in the form of Belgo, and there's far more. His investing colleagues at Risk Capital Partners include a couple of chartered accountants and an experienced professional in "start-ups, restructuring and investment banking". It's a bit like the team on the BBC's programme Dragons' Den, but this team is not seeking a media profile as well, they remain in the market, seeking success and making money.
What might this mean to the UK's book buying public? There will remain another separate bookselling chain, under its own management, that can seek opportunities and do things differently. I hope that Borders management, under its new ownership, will be steered into less of the lemming tendency and more of the "let's approach this differently and listen to our customers' expression of needs". With investment from a team of entrepreneurs - that key word again - I am confident that Borders UK will have an interesting future and that book buyers will seek out their stores.
Bravo to Borders UK and to Risk Capital Partners!
Adding the Welsh angle, as sometimes comes up on this blog, Borders in Cardiff opens next weekend, on the 28th of September to be precise, in The Hayes in Cardiff, in the old David Morgan department store building, a mere few paces from the local Waterstone's branch. Might this prove to be the "book corner" in Cardiff?
Good to see Borders remaining an independent chain with the potential for remaining "different" and hopefully with a wider selection of stock. Readers want that; it doesn't all come down to price as it does in the case of a can of beans or the latest cook-chill variety of an evening meal to stick in the microwave. Readers are discerning creatures; taste matters and individual genres are swallowed whole or spitted out.
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