ALEX BRUMMER: Owner of Waterstones Empowerment Books

The book trade is doing great. A record 1,900 titles were released this Super Thursday week, when publishers flooded the market with potential Christmas bestsellers.

This was a sharp increase from the 1,286 people affected by the pandemic in 2023.

There is no doubt that Boris Johnson's memoir “Unleashed” (published in the Daily Mail series) will quickly rise to the top of the bestseller list. By Christmas, other writers – including comedian and actress Miranda Hart, crime specialist Richard Osman and fellow literary authors Kate Mosse and Ian Rankin – can be expected to make a strong showing.

British-listed smart publisher Bloomsbury, home of JK Rowling, is looking for titles such as Rowan Jacobsen's Wild Chocolate, which has become a hit in the US, to appeal to sweets lovers.

Symbolic of the return of the printed word is the collaboration between John Lewis and Waterstones. The first step is to bring the High Street bookseller back to the resurgent Oxford Street, where another returnee is vinyl specialist HMV.

It seems that Amazon's rise as a place where you can buy physical and digital books at discounted prices has spelled the end of the physical book store chain.

The only survivors were the best, small independent traders offering specialist or local services on the trendier High Street.

Chains like Books etc., B Dalton in the US and others have disappeared.

In the UK, Waterstones survived after changing hands several times. Across the Atlantic, Barnes & Noble – with its sprawling flagship store in New York's Union Square – was on the doorstep.

Paul Singer and his activist investment firm Elliott Advisors entered the scene. The investment group is best known for its aggressive interventions. She gained fame for her heroic bet on Argentine bonds when they were thought to be worthless. Since then, he has been involved in countless management battles. Here in the UK it was instrumental in forcing change at the poorly performing Alliance Trust. This encouraged the transformation of the pioneering pharmaceutical company, GSK. Shares in Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust were purchased. In the US, Elliott is trying to oust the board of South-West Airlines.

When it comes to reading, it takes a different approach. In 2018, Elliott scooped up Waterstones, buying it for an undisclosed sum from Russian lawyer and billionaire Alexander Mamut. She took over a resurgent company that had survived the Amazon onslaught and thrived under the freelance book specialist James Daunt.

Singer and his team played an important role in the issue of “peak Amazon” – the concept that at a print market share of over 50 percent (much higher if digital publishing is included), saturation was reached. The opportunity has opened again for elegant shops on the High Street and in shopping centers – offering accessories in the form of greeting cards.

In 2019, Elliott continued Waterstones' success by acquiring then New York-listed Barnes & Noble for £525m after the group's share value fell by £800m. The next target seemed to be administration.

Daunt, a former City official who started out in a glamorous bookshop on Marylebone High Street in central London, was elevated to transatlantic book baron.

Barnes & Noble is in expansion mode. Over the summer, it bought Colorado-based book chain Tattered Cover out of Chapter 11 for £763,000.

By Elliott's standards, seven years of ownership of Waterstones, and now Barnes & Noble, equates to longevity. There have been suggestions that the property appeals to Singer, who likes antiquarian books. More likely, however, Elliott has seen an opportunity to revitalize the printed word over the Kindle (too much time is spent on screens) and is putting the fattening Waterstones/Barnes & Noble up for sale.

As a brick-and-mortar company, with a UK chief executive in Daunt, there is a real opportunity to list on the London Stock Exchange with a market value of up to £5 billion. The timing is unclear and like many institutions in the UK, Elliott Advisers may be waiting for the first budget and stability of Rachel Reeves. There seems to be no rush.

A global book retailer with a large reach in America would be a great win for the city.

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