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Disputed Text
edit- Ottakar's was highly regarded in the book trade for its creative, enthusiastic booksellers and the company enjoyed an extremely low staff turnover.[1] Central to Ottakar's success was the charismatic leadership of James Heneage, whose intelligent, eccentric and unpretentious management style was a contrast to the more corporate, centralised approach of chains like Waterstone's. Morale in Ottakar's was so good that one PR company described the company as "more like a religious cult than a business"[2].
- Ottakar's was also very popular with book buyers. The bright, colourful stores, friendly staff and award-winning children's sections clearly belonged to the Ottakar's chain, but each shop had its own distinctly local flavour. When HMV first launched a bid to buy Ottakar's in the autumn of 2005, the Office of Fair Trading received its largest ever number of public objections.
- The Office of Fair Trading was due to decide whether to approve the buyout of Ottakar's by Waterstone's on 2 December 2005. On 6 December the OFT referred the case to the Competition Commission, apparently due to the high level of public concern that a merger would harm customers, authors, suppliers and employees.[3] [4]
- Most Ottakar's managers decided to remain when Waterstone's took over the chain, but within two years, over 60% had left.[5]
I feel this text was justifiably removed. Please do not change the article until we can establish a consesus over these statements. There seems to be a persistent editing of this article from those with a WP:COI, as these statements do not seem to follow the standards for citing sources or verifiability, and create an article without a neutral point of view. The initial revert was unjustified. It did not follow the guidelines for reverting pages. Ruokasi (talk) 23:26, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
References
- ^ Facebook group Bring Back Ottakar's reflects this
- ^ Damien Horner
- ^ The Independent: Cover Stories: Ottakar's; The Book People; Hachette
- ^ BBC News: HMV bid for Ottakar's gets review
- ^ A Waterstone's branch list from spring 2008 confirms this
Managers Quit
editI just added cite needed tag to mention of Ottakar managers resignations. The only reference i could find was [1] which is a blog and should not be used as a reference. Buster Seven Talk 16:01, 17 April 2011 (UTC)