Bookshops

Archived Posts from this Category

January 23, 2010

“The short-sightedness of helping an industry cause its own collapse is staggering.”

Posted by Phil Groom under Book Trade Ramblings, Bookshops, Musings... | Tags: , , , , , , , , |
[8] Comments 

I spotted this on the Times online, an ad in the header of last Saturday’s article about Christian bookshops, The call goes out to keep Jesus on the High Street:

The short-sightedness of helping an important industry to cause its own collapse is staggering.

"The short-sightedness of helping an industry cause its own collapse is staggering" — Frank Pope

It’s an excerpt from an article about overfishing of bluefin tuna, which begins:

Two weeks ago a single bluefin tuna sold in Japan for a surreal £111,000. The price of this fish, which ends up in the best sushi restaurants, will carry on rocketing so long as the tuna population keeps plummeting.

It struck me as remarkably apposite for the book trade too: not just the Christian trade, but the wider trade. This week we’ve been having a lively debate about the pros and cons of publishers promoting Amazon in their advertising: A Polite Request to Christian (and other) Publishers: Please don’t do this; and I’m delighted to say that the Evangelical Press, whose posters gave rise to the discussion, have acknowledged their gaffe and apologised.

But I still find myself looking at Amazon askance as publishers seem to cave in to their ever more extortionate demands, supplying them at terms that allow them to sell at below trade or wholesale prices. Did someone forget to put up the warning sign: “Do not feed the troll”? Or are most publishers really that short-sighted that all they can see is the immediate sale and not the long term future?

Of course, it’s not just Amazon and the publishers: it’s the buying public. I’ve long since lost track of the number of people who wander into my shop, tell me how much they enjoy being able to look at a book before buying it — then promptly go off to purchase it online. Hello? Wakey wakey, people: how long do you think your local bookshop will survive if you treat it as nothing more than a showroom for Amazon?

There are notable exceptions, customers who call in, tell me that they know they can get a book cheaper online but they appreciate the service I provide; my thanks to them: you know who you are, and I salute you.

Then we have the rise of the ebook. They still occupy a relatively small sector of the marketplace: I’ve yet to see more people on the train with their ebook readers out than with paperbacks; but with Apple’s rumoured iTablet on the horizon, the tide may be about to turn and all those books we’ve buried in the sand may be sucked out to sea, where, with the bluefin tuna, they’ll be fished to extinction.

Or if not to extinction, to the point where they’re so rare that the only bookshops left will be like those top sushi restaurants, selling paperback books for £111,000…

 

December 4, 2009

Debts of the former SPCK bookshop chain: Church Times letter

Posted by mattwardman2000 under Bookshops, Info, News | Tags: , , , |
Leave a Comment 

Matt Wardman writes:

We have a  letter published in the Church Times this week about the former SPCK bookshop chain. Kudos to the CT for putting it outside the paywall, where everyone can see it.

A fuller version, with a few points about the J Mark Brewer attempt (known to us as the Great Texan Wild Goose Chase) to dodge debts by putting a sort-of conflation of various bits of his organisations into Bankruptcy in South Texas, declaring lots of debts but none of the assets, is in this week’s Bookseller – but they don’t always put letters online.

Debts of the former SPCK bookshop chain

From Mr Phil Groom and others

Sir,

We must thank the Interim Manager appointed to oversee the Saint Stephen the Great Charitable Trust, and Saint Stephen the Great, charities for his work in stopping the rot in the former SPCK bookshop chain, and recovering the shops (Durham Cathedral Bookshop excepted) from Philip and J. Mark Brewer. At least we are now on the way out of the woods.

We note, however, the notice from him in The Bookseller last week suggesting that creditors “who believe that they have a valid claim against the Trustees of St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust incurred before 1 July 2007” should write to him at: The Interim Manager, Begbies Traynor (Central) LLP, 32 Cornhill, London EC3V 3BT, under “ref. S8703” before the close of business on 16 December.

This causes us some concerns. The Interim Manager is completely right that this whole affair has been made fearsomely complex by the use by J. Mark and Philip Brewer of at least seven different corporate entities over the past three years. These comprise three charities, three private companies, and a company limited by guarantee, some of which have similar or identical names, and all controlled by various permuta­tions of the Brewer family members.

The notice as published seeks creditors of “St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust”, without identifying a specific charity number, and restricts the call to debts incurred before the end of June 2007. Given the confused governance and business relation­ships, we suggest that the Interim Manager needs to cast a far wider net, at least initially.

We are also concerned about the deadline for responses. The SPCK bookshop chain was a business with worldwide links, and the range of creditors may well include cathed­rals, communion-wine suppliers, development charities, craft busi­nesses, religious communities in Eastern Europe, a consulting engineer, and others. All of these creditor groups appeared in Texas court documents in 2008.

We urge all creditors, and potential creditors, to get in touch with the Interim Manager using the contacts in the notice, and/or those given on the Charity Commission site stsgct@gothamerskine.co.uk, via email, or by phone on 020 7490 1880.

We hope that a specific contact will be made with the hundreds of suppliers identified in the court documents. We also hope that the deadline for responses will be extended to a more realistic period, perhaps to the end of January 2010.

PHIL GROOM
MATT WARDMAN
SIMON BARROW

 

November 27, 2009

(Updated) Former-SPCK/SSG Bookshops Interim Manager advertises for Creditor Claims

Posted by mattwardman2000 under Bookshops, Christian Suppliers, Info, News | Tags: , , , |
Leave a Comment 
Matt Wardman writes:

This advert appeared in this week’s Bookseller.
Note that you only have about a fortnight to write in.
ST STEPHEN THE GREAT CHARITABLE TRUST

This charity has been in the press over recent years as a result of concerns expressed over its operations. In April 2009 the Charity Commission appointed Peter Gotham of Begbies Traynor as Interim Manager to take over its running - other than with respect to its religious mission in the churches it controls. This objective was made more complicated by virtue of the fact that since July 2007 the shops previously operated by the charity were managed instead by other companies appointed by the Trustees. The Interim Manager has now completed his initial work, has retaken possession of most shops, and is moving towards meeting valid claims on the charity’s assets. In order to do this he has instructed agents to put various of the Trust’s properties on sale. He is now advertising for creditors’ claims incurred before 1 July 2007 in order to ensure that no valid claims go unmet. (Any claims incurred after 1 July 2007 will be the responsibility of the various companies engaged by the Trustees.)
Creditors who believe that they have a valid claim against the Trustees of St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust incurred before 1 July 2007, should write to the Interim Manager at Begbies Traynor (Central) LLP, 32 Cornhill, London EC3V 3BT under ref S8703 before the close of business on 16 December 2009.
Presented by: Begbies Traynor (Central) LLP
Presenter’s Reference: S8703/PJG/NGA/BRS

———————————————————————————-
Editorial Note: At this point I am not at all convinced by the cut-off date, though, without seeing rock-solid evidence. For example, Mark Brewer was reported by the Bookseller as acting for SSG in November 2007 when the chain dropped the SPCK name.

And which external companies were responsible for running the shops after 1 July 2007? The company which seems to have been responsible for running most of them – ENC Shop Management Ltd – was not registered at Companies House until 11 March 2008

Groups such as the Church of England Pensions’ Board and various government agencies, and other creditors, need to take a close look at this.

And you only have 2 weeks to do so.
[Update: 27/9/1009.

We have been in touch with the interim Manager's team during the afternoon.
The reason why responsibility is accepted for debts incurred before 1 July 2007 is that the Interim Manager was appointed to manage the "St Stephen the Great Trust" (no 1119839) charity, while a separate  charity - a Company Limited by Guarantee - had been created to manage the bookshops. The Interim Manager was not appointed to manage this Company Limited by Guarantee, and so they are not accepting reponsibility for debts incurred by this Company.
Editorial note: This is all horribly complicated, and we will try and submit a list of detailed questions to the Interim Manager and the Charity Commission over the weekend.  The Company Limited by Guarantee was merged with the parent charity (no 1119839) by direction of the Charity Commission on 27 July 2007 - see the "subsidiary charities" page on the link above, so it is not clear to us how the Interim Manager is entirely not responsible for actions of this charity.
In the meantime, there is an email address for the Interim Manager on the Charity Commission website, where you can send your precise queries.]

 

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,308 other followers