Ottakar's
Ottakar's was a chain of bookshops in the United Kingdom founded in 1987 by James Heneage. Following a takeover by the HMV Group in 2006, the chain was merged into the Waterstone's brand, who retain the Ottakar's trademark after Waterstones and HMV split. History James Heneage established the Ottakar's chain in 1987, taking inspiration from ''The Adventures of Tintin'' book '' King Ottokar's Sceptre''. He saw a lucrative market in small towns that lacked a Waterstones branch and opened stores in Loughborough, Brighton, Banbury, Salisbury and Trowbridge. A number of Ottakar's stores drew on the Tintin connection and had walls painted with scenes from the series. The Ottakar store in Bromley, London had a large rocket taken from the Tintin novels so that children could play inside it. Above the rocket was a cartoon picture of the night sky to add to the effect. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1998 and expanded rapidly, making a number of acquisitions ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Waterstone's
Waterstones Booksellers Limited, trading as Waterstones (formerly Waterstone's), is a British bookselling, book retailer based in London, England, owned by the American investment group Elliott Investment Management. It operates 311 shops, mainly in the United Kingdom and other nearby countries. it employed around 3,500 staff in Britain and Europe. The average Waterstones branch sells a range of approximately 30,000 individual books, as well as stationery and other related products. Founded in 1982 by Tim Waterstone, the bookseller expanded rapidly until being sold in 1993 to WHSmith. In 1998 Waterstones was bought by a consortium of Waterstone, EMI, and Advent International. The company was taken under the umbrella of HMV, which later merged the Dillons the Bookstore, Dillons and Ottakar's brands into the company. Following several poor sets of results for the group, HMV put the chain up for sale. In May 2011 it was announced that A&NN Capital Fund Management, owned by the R ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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James Heneage
James Heneage (born 31 October 1957) is a British writer, and literary festival entrepreneur. He was the co-founder of the Ottakar’s bookshop chain, the Chalke Valley History Festival and the Kardamyli Festival in the Greek Peloponnese. Career Educated at Worth School, Heneage joined the Grenadier Guards where he served a short-service commission from 1978 to 1982. Between 1982 and 1987 he worked in advertising, finishing as an Account Director for Ogilvy and Mather. Heneage founded the bookshop chain Ottakar’s in 1987 which was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1998 and grew to a chain of 142 branches, employing some 2,500 people. Despite Heneage and others attempting a management buyout, the chain was sold to the HMV Group, then owner of Waterstones, in 2006. Ottakar’s was well known in the book trade for the high morale and commitment of its staff, considered "more like a religious cult than a business". Also in 2006 he was awarded The Random House Group Awar ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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James Thin
James Thin Ltd was a British bookshop chain, founded by James Thin (Bookseller), James Thin in 1848. It operated for 154 years, during which time it was run by five generations of the Thin family. Starting from a single shop in Edinburgh, it grew to a national concern with 35 branches throughout Scotland and England. In 2002, following a period of rapid expansion, it went into voluntary administration, after which most of its shops were purchased by other companies in the book trade. Origins The company was founded in 1848 by James Thin (Bookseller), James Thin (1824–1915). For most its existence the firm traded under Thin's own name, only becoming James Thin Ltd. in the 1970s. Thin had previously worked for 12 years for James McIntosh, a bookseller at 5 North College Street, having joined the firm as an apprentice at the age of eleven. On 3 April 1848, Thin opened his own shop, at 14 Infirmary Street, having taken over the assets of a Mr Rickard, a bookseller who was in fina ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Waterstone's Children's Book Prize
The Waterstones Children's Book Prize is an annual award given to a work of children's literature published during the previous year. First awarded in 2005, the purpose of the prize is "to uncover hidden talent in children's writing" and is therefore open only to authors who have published no more than two or three books, depending on which category they are in. The prize is awarded by British book retailer Waterstones. It was originally called the Ottakar's Children's Book Prize, after the bookshop chain. When all Ottakar's stores were rebranded as Waterstone's following the HMV Group takeover in 2006, the prize also changed its name to become the Waterstone's Children's Book Prize. Beginning in 2012, the prize was divided into three categories: Picture Books, Fiction 5–12, and Teen. Each category winner receives £2,000 with an overall winner chosen from the three getting an additional £3,000 (thus the overall winner receives £5,000 in total). In 2016 the categories were ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Philip Dunne (Ludlow Politician)
Philip Martin Dunne (born 14 August 1958) is a British politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Ludlow constituency in Shropshire from 2005 to 2024. He is a member of the Conservative Party. He has been a farmer since 1987, at his family's farm in Herefordshire, at Leintwardine. He was elected in 2001 as a councillor on the South Shropshire District Council, of which he was the Conservative leader in 2003–2005. He was also secretary of the Ludlow Conservative Association for a year in 2001. Dunne served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence Procurement from 2012 to 2016 and as Minister of State for Health from 2016 to 2018. In June 2020, Dunne's contact details were found in an address book belonging to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. Early life and education Philip Dunne was born in Ludlow, Shropshire, and has an ancestry of politicians and courtiers. He is the son of Sir Thomas Dunne KG, the former Lord Lieutenant of Here ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Adventures Of Tintin
''The Adventures of Tintin'' ( ) is a series of 24 comic albums created by Belgians, Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi, who wrote under the pen name Hergé. The series was one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century. By 2007, a century after Hergé's birth in 1907, ''Tintin'' had been published in more than 70 languages with sales of more than 200 million copies, and had been adapted for radio, television, theatre, and film. The series first appeared in French on 10 January 1929 in (''The Little Twentieth''), a youth supplement to the Belgian newspaper (''The Twentieth Century''). The success of the series led to serial (literature), serialised strips published in Belgium's leading newspaper (''The Evening'') and spun into a successful Tintin (magazine), ''Tintin'' magazine. In 1950, Hergé created Studios Hergé, which produced the canonical versions of ten ''Tintin'' albums. Following Hergé's death in 1983, the final instalment of the series, ''Tintin and Al ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alan Giles
Alan James Giles OBE is a British businessman and currently a non-executive director of the Competition and Markets Authority. He is also a non-executive director of Rentokil Initial plc and a member of OFT's Audit and Risk Remuneration committees. Career From March 1999 until September 2006 he was chief executive officer of HMV Group, owner of record shop HMV, which he joined in 1998. HMV Group also owned the UK bookshop chain Waterstones, which bought another book chain Ottakars in 2006. HMV and Waterstones suffered a decline in sales in the financial year 2005–2006. Giles stated that the internet, including music downloading, and supermarket competition, contributed towards HMV's decline in sales. After leaving HMV, he became chairman of Fat Face In typography, a fat face letterform is a serif typeface or piece of lettering in the Didone (typography), Didone or modern style with an extremely bold design. Fat face typefaces appeared in London around 1805–1810 and b ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Retail Companies Established In 1987
Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is the sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and then sells in smaller quantities to consumers for a profit. Retailers are the final link in the supply chain from producers to consumers. Retail markets and shops have a long history, dating back to antiquity. Some of the earliest retailers were itinerant peddlers. Over the centuries, retail shops were transformed from little more than "rude booths" to the sophisticated shopping malls of the modern era. In the digital age, an increasing number of retailers are seeking to reach broader markets by selling through multiple channels, including both bricks and mortar and online retailing. Digital technologies are also affecting the way that consumers pay for goods and services. Retailing support services may also include the provisi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Retail Companies Disestablished In 2006
Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is the sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and then sells in smaller quantities to consumers for a profit. Retailers are the final link in the supply chain from producers to consumers. Retail markets and shops have a long history, dating back to antiquity. Some of the earliest retailers were itinerant peddlers. Over the centuries, retail shops were transformed from little more than "rude booths" to the sophisticated shopping malls of the modern era. In the digital age, an increasing number of retailers are seeking to reach broader markets by selling through multiple channels, including both bricks and mortar and online retailing. Digital technologies are also affecting the way that consumers pay for goods and services. Retailing support services may also include the provision o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |