Penguin Random House Breaks Into Two
Penguin Random House, a book publishing company, has officially spun off its bookstores into a brand-new, independent company, Waterstones Booksellers Limited. The new company aims to expand both its publisher deals and its locations aggressively, ‘with the plan being to have a Waterstones in as many major countries in the world as possible’.
A C-suite exec from Penguin Random House provided this statement on condition of anonymity:
“We felt that our bookstore business was too small to focus on properly, and that it was in our best interest to avoid the vertical integration business model, which does not really work in the book business. As such we broke off the bookstore in order to (a) let the bookstores grow more organically and (b) to establish business relations with the new company to avoid pulling books from shelves. I can’t tell you how much the contract is for, but let me tell you, it’s in the tens of millions of pounds.”