Bertrams was the second largest

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

based wholesaler of books, owned since 2018 by Aurelius Investments. It has 200,000 titles available for same-day despatch and has access to over 13 million books in print. The group includes Bertram Books, Bertram Publisher Services and Bertram Library Services. The company was founded in 1971 by

Elsie Bertram Elsie Bertram ( Hacking; 6 June 1912 – 26 October 2003) was an English wholesale publishers' bookseller and philanthropist who co-founded the Bertrams books wholesaler in 1968. She became wholesale distributor for Pan Paperbacks in East Anglia ...

and her son Kip, based on a business which Elsie had been running since 1965 in a chicken shed in the garden of her

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...

home. It had and still does have independent booksellers as its core customers. Bertrams was bought by

Woolworths Group Woolworth, Woolworth's, or Woolworths may refer to: Businesses * F. W. Woolworth Company, the original US-based chain of "five and dime" (5¢ and 10¢) stores * Woolworths Group (United Kingdom), former operator of the Woolworths chain of shops ...

in 2007. The acquisition was reviewed by the

Competition Commission The Competition Commission was a non-departmental public body responsible for investigating mergers, markets and other enquiries related to regulated industries under competition law in the United Kingdom. It was a competition regulator under t ...

. The retail business of Woolworths Group and its distribution firm

Entertainment UK Entertainment UK Limited (EUK) was a retail supply and distribution company and a wholly owned subsidiary of Woolworths Group. The company, and Woolworths plc, entered administration with Deloitte on 26 November 2008. EUK claimed to have had a t ...

entered

administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal ** Administrative assistant, Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an admini ...

in November 2008, although Bertrams did not as it operated as a separate division within the group. Woolworths Group entered into administration itself in January 2009. Bertrams entered administration on 20 March 2009 and sold on the same day by

Ernst & Young Ernst & Young Global Limited, trade name EY, is a multinational professional services partnership headquartered in London, England. EY is one of the largest professional services networks in the world. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and Pricewaterh ...

in a "pre-pack" deal to

Smiths News Smiths News is a distributor of newspapers, magazines, books and consumables, headquartered in Swindon, England. The company, originally known as 'WHSmith News' was created and renamed Smiths News PLC on 1 September 2006 from the demerger A de ...

(now Connect Group) for £8,611,622. It was sold by Connect Group in 2018 and entered administration again on 19 June 2020. As of June 2020 many of the suppliers remain unpaid. Galley Beggar Press, based in Norwich, is owed £7,000, and its co-founder Sam Jordison said Bertrams has "quite a lot of stock of ours - we have printed the books, but don't know if we can get hold of them".

References

External links

* {{official website, http://www.bertrams.com/ 1971 establishments in the United Kingdom Book distributors F. W. Woolworth Company Wholesalers of the United Kingdom

See also

References

External links