A story in the Daily Mail says that Simon Fox, chief executive of retailer HMV, has indicated that he would consider selling the Waterstone's book chain, though he said its disappearance would be 'tragic', in an interview with Financial Mail following the company's results. Waterstone's barely made a profit in the year up to April. He said, "Clearly making less than £3 million profit on sales of over £500 million is not a good place to be. But I'm optimistic that the new strategy will continue to bear fruit." However, he admitted that he would consider anything that could "enhance shareholder value". Adding, "If anyone came along with a large bag of money for any part of the business, we would take that very seriously. But that is not the case."
The HMV group, with Waterstone, is the last major book retailer in the UK (after it acquired Dillons and Ottakar's) with other rivals such as Borders and Books Etc having collapsed. Waterstone's has struggled to compete with online rivals like Amazon.
No announcements about selling groceries, though.
Daily Mail
