Good piece but it omits some relevant points. - James Daunt is now CEO of both B&N and Waterstones in the UK. Waterstones is a sizeable business in its own rig

Good piece but it omits some relevant points. - James Daunt is now CEO of both B&N and Waterstones in the UK. Waterstones is a sizeable business in its own right with over 300 stores and totally dominates high street bookselling in the UK. - Both B&N and Waterstones are owned by Elliot Management who bought B&N after acquiring Waterstones. - Daunt only got his chance to run Waterstones after being installed by (now sanctioned) Russian Oligarch Alexander Mamut who bought the chain for $66m. I think it's fair to say this was a significant piece of risk taking as Waterstones was, at best, weeks away from insolvency and probably would have ceased to exist in anything like its present form. Of course, at that point Daunt's model was unproven (except in his own handful of London bookstores). Here is James Daunt in his own words (from pre B&N): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjs2_iAomnc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjs2_iAomnc