Bertrams put up for sale

Norwich wholesaler Bertrams has been put up for sale by its parent company Aurelius, The Bookseller can reveal, along with its subsidiary companies Dawson Books and Education Umbrella.

Middleton Barton Valuation (MBV), a company specialising in restructuring and asset recovery, has advertised for interest in the East Anglia-based "leading B2B books wholesaler" with sales of £250m. The businesses have not yet been placed into administration, it is understood, pending a possible sale.

The advert, which appears in The Bookseller today (Friday 15th May) and online, discloses the opportunity to "purchase the business assets of a leading UK books wholesaler to retailers both nationally and internationally" through the services of MBV. The advertised wholesaler has an "185,000 sq ft warehouse", " 200,000 titles held in stock", and "access to over 13 million titles", with a turnover of £249,642,000.

Along with the wholesaler, a "Leading Supplier of Print and Digital Content to Universities and Institutions" and a "UK Online Retailer of Educational Books and Digital Resources" are for sale. The turnover figures quoted in the advert match the numbers recorded in the latest accounts filed at Companies House for Bertrams, Dawson, and Education Umbrella, though in fact the accounting period was for 16 months from September 2017 to end-December 2018.

The development comes after Bertrams confirmed it was conducting a strategic review of its business, following the sale of its Wordery, Erasmus and Houtschild businesses.

The company has not responded to requests for an update on its situation since it sold Wordery and the Sunday Times reported that the company would appoint an administrator. At the time, Bertrams issued this response via its Twitter account: "We are not in administration. Apart from the sale of the businesses announced there is no change to the operations disclosed at the beginning of April which are in a furloughed state for the foreseeable future."

A number of publishers are owed money by Bertrams, with invoices that pre-date the pandemic and UK lockdown. One independent press is owed "a five-figure debt", which has impacted its cashflow "terribly". Its owner confirmed the failure in "the distribution network has posed the single biggest threat to my business — we would otherwise still be on track to publish all titles this year and be able to sit tight through the crisis". One publisher, based in Bath, confirmed Bertrams owed it £5,000, with another confirming its distributor is owed £15,000 by the company and was now "holding back on future sales". Other larger publishers are also owed money, and have threatened legal action.

Larger publishers spoken to by The Bookseller were broadly supportive of the business, despite the outstanding debts, and remained hopeful that a buyer could be found, with speculation that it could organise a pre-pack administration, whereby a company arranges a deal to sell its assets to a buyer before appointing administrators to facilitate the sale.