This is half-pie.

extortion?

Posted 12. August 2007, 22:30 in by Alan Macdougall, received 3 comments.

A big news story over the ditch in Australia at the moment is an incredibly arrogant attempt by leading bookseller Angus & Robertson Whitcoulls (ARW) to put the screws on smaller publishers by demanding they pay extra money to have their books stocked. Huh?

That this is wrong on so many levels (and there’s a great deconstruction here) just makes me want to forgo the pleasure (or otherwise) of visiting Whitcoulls ever again. This has to be the dark side of those Private Equity “gut it and cut out” types: in this case Pacific Equity Partners, the owners of ARW.

Of course, it doesn’t get any better. Pacific Equity Partners are currently competing with Dymocks to get hold of Borders’ Australasian operations; with this, it is said, they’ll be able to float the lot. End-game: Ka-Ching for P.E.P.! And maybe more clowns like the people running ARW at loose about the place.

I really should stick to my local bookshops, eh.

Comments

  1. Koz
    13 August 2007, 10:05 #

    I’ve yet to decide whether to stick with the locals, or go completely soulless and order everything from amazon.

    On the positive side, the massive contraction in the credit markets may well put at least some of the PE plans to rest. Time will tell I guess ;)

  2. Alan
    13 August 2007, 20:27 #

    I suppose you could use a mixture of both – Unity and the other locals for browsing for those serendipitous finds and Amazon for anything technical…

  3. Alan
    13 August 2007, 20:33 #

    And above where I wrote “it is said”, I should have linked here for attribution of the PEP/Borders float rumour.

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