{"id":1961,"date":"2018-09-07T11:27:48","date_gmt":"2018-09-07T11:27:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/waterstones-buys-foyles-to-defend-bookshops-against-amazon\/"},"modified":"2018-09-07T11:27:48","modified_gmt":"2018-09-07T11:27:48","slug":"waterstones-buys-foyles-to-defend-bookshops-against-amazon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/waterstones-buys-foyles-to-defend-bookshops-against-amazon\/","title":{"rendered":"Waterstones buys Foyles to defend bookshops against Amazon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\"FoylesImage copyright<\/span>
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Waterstones is buying the 115 year-old family-owned chain Foyles, saying the deal will help to “champion” real bookshops in the face of online rivals.<\/p>\n

The sale includes Foyles’ well-known Charing Cross Road store in central London, which was relocated to larger premises in 2014. <\/p>\n

Waterstones said the deal would help booksellers fight back against Amazon’s “siren call”.<\/p>\n

The larger chain has 283 bookshops across the UK and northern Europe.<\/p>\n

Foyles was founded at the turn of the last century by the Foyle family and for more than half a century was run by the famously eccentric Christina Foyle. Her approach included sorting the books by publisher rather than alphabetically, and regularly dismissing staff within a year. <\/p>\n

‘New chapter’<\/h2>\n

In 2007, the firm appointed its first chief executive from outside the family.<\/p>\n

Welcoming the deal, Christopher Foyle said: “My family and I are delighted that Foyles is entering a new chapter, one which secures the brand’s future and protects its personality. <\/p>\n

“I look forward to witnessing the exciting times ahead for the company founded by my grandfather and his brother 115 years ago.” <\/p>\n

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Why is Foyles’ Charing Cross Road shop famous?<\/h2>\n

Foyles original store was something of a mecca for booklovers, drawn by its history and the promise of browsing the vast stock, in what was once the world’s largest bookshop.<\/p>\n

It pops up in numerous literary works<\/a>, by authors including Graham Greene, John Le Carre and Ian McEwan.<\/p>\n

And it has boasted a star-studded clientele, including film actor Richard Burton, who once pilfered books from Foyles and was later horrified to discover that his then wife Elizabeth Taylor – taking a leaf out his own book – had stolen a copy of A Shropshire Lad by poet Alfred Edward Housman.<\/p>\n

“It’s the first and last thing she ever stole in her life, except, of course, husbands,” wrote Burton.<\/p>\n

Perversely, it was partly because the shop was so badly run that it seemed to charm its customers.<\/p>\n

Books were filed with total disregard to logic, and modern technology including automated tills and computers was stubbornly resisted. Customers were obliged to queue twice to purchase a book.<\/p>\n

But as Agatha Christie wrote in The Clocks, it was as if the books “had run wild and taken possession of their habitat”.<\/p>\n

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Waterstones was bought by activist investment fund Elliot Advisors<\/a> earlier this year, but the new owners retained James Daunt as chief executive.<\/p>\n

Mr Daunt said the acquisition of Foyles would leave the company “stronger and better positioned to protect and champion the pleasures of real bookshops in the face of Amazon’s siren call”.<\/p>\n

He said good bookshops were rediscovering their purpose “in the fight-back against online and e-reading”.<\/p>\n

The transaction – the terms of which were not disclosed – is expected to be completed before the end of the year. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Source<\/a> by [author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image copyright Getty Images Waterstones is buying the 115 year-old family-owned chain Foyles, saying the deal will help to “champion” real bookshops in the face of online rivals. The sale includes Foyles’ well-known Charing Cross Road store in central London, which was relocated to larger premises in 2014. Waterstones said the deal would help booksellers … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}