You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Jobs go in Thin's collapse
Richard Lewis
Nearly 130 jobs are likely to be lost at James Thin, the 154-year-old Scottish bookseller that went into voluntary administration with reported debts of £5m last week.
PricewaterhouseCoopers, the administrator which is now running the chain, has made 60 redundancies across the head office and 28 branches. It said it would close five loss-making branches in early February unless the shops are sold, leading to a further 68 redundancies among the remaining 390 employees. The chain's senior management team--including m.d. Jackie Thin and commercial director Malcolm Gibson--remain in place.
Bruce Cartwright, partner at PwC, said he aimed to sell the business: "Although a number of branches are underperforming and will be closed, there appears to be a substantial core business with an established brand and reputation."
But Jackie Thin would not be drawn on the company's future. "It is too early to say if Thin's will continue," she told The Bookseller. "It is hoped we can sell to one player, but it is more likely individual players will buy certain shops."
She said that increased competition, falling turnover and the cost of closing loss-making shops were to blame for the chain's position.
Ms Thin defended the 1994 acquisition of Volume One. "It's easy to look back with hindsight and question, but you need to be a big player these days and Volume One was important for size," she said. "You need those economies of scale."
Mr Cartwright said there had been about 10 approaches from prospective buyers of the shops: "The leading players have been in touch to further understand the situation and have shown an interest."
James Thin began trading in Edinburgh in 1848 and has been in the family ever since. The first bookseller to use TeleOrdering and one of the first to computerise its operations, the chain built a power base in Scotland before expanding into England with the purchase of Volume One. That £4m acquisition was this week described by an observer as "one of the worst business decisions ever made".
After an initial doubling of sales to £33.5m in 1995, turnover hovered between £34m and £35m until it began to decline in 1999. Pretax profit only once in five years topped its pre-1995 level of £847,659. Pretax margin never recovered to its pre-Volume One level of 5.3%. In the year to end-January 2001, Thins reported a pretax loss of £116,000 on sales of £26.8m.
Of the five branches at im- mediate risk of closure--Ilford, Uxbridge, Norwich, Hounslow and Carlisle--four are former Volume One stores.
Tim Godfray, chief executive of the Booksellers Association, said: "We are greatly saddened by the news. James Thin has made a tremendous contribution to bookselling and we wish the very best for all the people involved."
Publishers were "shocked and surprised" by the news. Sheila Crowley, Hodder&Stoughton sales director, echoed the views of many publishers' sales teams: "None of us saw it coming. Sales with Thin's were up and we had promotions planned until spring."
Another publisher added: "Perhaps the banks decided now was the time for their pound of flesh--after Christmas when Thin's would be in a strong cash position."
