Waterstone's going downmarket - founder

The founder of bookshop chain Waterstone’s has accused its managers of taking it downmarket and said he may try to buy it back.

Entrepreneur Tim Waterstone told The Times the current management of Waterstone’s, which is owned by music retailer HMV, had tended to “bring it down to the middle market” in recent years.

Mr Waterstone said he had always viewed the business as a top end retailer after founding it in 1982 with £6,000 (€8,500) of his redundancy payout.

The entrepreneur, who now runs a children’s retail group, said he was sure he would be one of the people interested in taking over Waterstone’s if HMV decided to sell it.

“If I did buy it, I would move it back to where it was before,” he said.

No one from HMV was available to comment.

Mr Waterstone founded the book chain after controversially leaving stationer and bookseller WH Smith, which later bought Waterstone’s from him.

In 1998, Mr Waterstone bought the chain back from WH Smith and it was later merged with Dillons and HMV and listed on the London Stock Exchange in May 2002.

He later formed a children’s retail empire, purchasing Early Learning Centre for £62m (€87.6m) in April last year and merging it with Daisy & Tom, the children’s department store group he founded in 1996. The ELC deal was backed by private equity group Rhone Capital and publishing group DC Thompson.

HMV Group has 366 HMV stores in eight countries across Europe, North America and Pacific Asia as well as 193 Waterstone’s stores principally in the UK and Ireland.

An online operation is planned to stave off growing competition.