Daunt plots next chapter for Barnes & Noble and Waterstones

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James Daunt, the boss of both Barnes & Noble in the US and Waterstones in the UK, plans to open dozens more bookshops this year with an eye on a potential combined flotation in London or New York in the future.

Daunt said there would be about 60 shops added to Barnes & Noble in the US, which already has about 1,000 stores across the country. The British-born bookseller oversaw the opening of 57 stores in the US and 12 in the UK in 2024 — what he dubbed a “really significant expansion” — with plans to “do that or more in 2025”.

Waterstones was sold to Elliott, the private equity group, in 2018 by Russian billionaire Alexander Mamut, with Barnes & Noble, the larger US business, acquired by the same investment management firm in 2019.

Daunt also still owns his eponymous independent UK book chain.

He has run Waterstones since 2011, and has managed to see off the challenge posed by Amazon, which sells books both directly to consumers and also via its Kindle. Other rivals such as Foyles, Hatchards and Blackwell’s have also since been bought by Waterstones, making the Elliott-owned combined entities the largest bookseller by stores on both sides of the Atlantic.

Daunt said it would be “logical” to look at an initial public offering of the consolidated businesses in the future, although any decision would depend on Elliott’s strategy. A person close to the fund manager said there were no plans at present to list the chains but that it would be one of the possible options in the future.

For now, Daunt said he was focused on bringing together the IT and finance systems at Barnes & Noble and Waterstones on to one platform.

Daunt predicted another successful holiday season for the bookseller, boosted by the last weekend of trading before Christmas Day.

The holiday period worked well for last-minute shoppers, Daunt said, given expectations that many would wait for the weekend before Christmas to find their gifts.

“If you are in the ‘last minute’ game — and we are to an extent — then [ . . .] it was a solid Christmas that came late because of the fall of the calendar,” he said. “The last weekend and [December] 23-24 were exceptional on both sides of the Atlantic. It has been a good post-Christmas as well.”

He said there was no clear best-selling genre this year, with sales across categories. Booksellers tend to see a drop-off after the January sales period, but Daunt said a new book from popular fantasy author Rebecca Yarros at the end of the month was expected to drive business.

Daunt said pay inflation was “really significant” for the business, but backed the UK government’s move to increase national insurance costs, which has been opposed by many executives in the retail and consumer industry sectors.

Instead, he said the most significant issue for Waterstones in the UK was Brexit: “It remains the biggest pain, adds to the cost and complexity, and made our labour situation worse.”