You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Waterstones' retail director McShane departs after 17 years
Waterstones’ retail director Rik McShane has left the company after 17 years.
The departure was relayed to staff just after news broke that the retailer had achieved a profit for the first time under the ownership of Russian businessman Alexander Mamut and under the direction of its m.d James Daunt, with sales up 4% to £409.1m in the year to 30th April 2016, helping it achieve a pre-tax profit of £9.9m from a pre-tax loss of £4.5m a year earlier.
Rik McShane had been retail director since 2013, promoted under Daunt from his position as head of books, which he was appointed to in 2012.
No new venture for McShane was revealed, except to say he had left to “pursue new opportunities”.
Daunt said McShane would be “greatly missed” from the business and had his “sincere thanks and good wishes”.
“I thank Rik for all that he has achieved at Waterstones over many years,” he said. “It has been a pleasure to work with him and, together with my colleagues, we wish him well.”
McShane told The Bookseller he had “loved every minute of working at Waterstones: the shops, the books and above all the people” but said he felt that “a change was needed”.
“I can't imagine a better, wittier, friendlier bunch of people to work with and I am going to miss them all dearly, “ he said. “However, after 17 years in the same business it seemed like a change was needed and it felt like the right time to move on and try something new. I know that Waterstones will continue to improve and succeed with the passionate and wonderful booksellers that are driving it and I wish it and everyone the very best for the future.”
He added: “I'm certainly not planning on changing my browsing or buying habits, and it will be nice to be able to shop the bookshops as a customer for a change.”
The Bookseller understands that a replacement is likely to be recruited from within Waterstones. Staff were told a new reporting structure would be communicated “shortly”.
On Friday (3rd January) The Bookseller reported that Waterstones plans to open stores in “double figures” in 2017.
