The Office of Fair Trading’s Competition Commission is certainly doing their best to make sure every possible interested party can have their say about the proposed merger between Ottakar’s and HMV (even as another player might be moving in to take HMV over.) This time, the floor has been opened to independent booksellers, as an organization called Fighting for Private Businesses is urging them to give their view on the merger by filling out a questionnaire. The findings from the questionnaire, which is also being mailed to more than 1,000 booksellers this week, will form the basis of the FPB’s submission to the CC inquiry.
But the Bertram Group believes that the merger might actually benefit indies, the Bookseller reports. Bertram CEO Terry Reilly claimed in a submission to the CC’s Inquiry that the merger would “create a high street force to compete more effectively with supermarkets and book clubs, and motivate publishers to give specialist independent booksellers greater weighting by offering them fairer terms and nurturing the development of their business and long term success.”
Richard Ratner, an analyst for Seymour Pierce, is just getting cranky with the whole business. As he wrote in his submission, referring the merger to the anti-competition commission was a result of “anti-merger hysteria” whipped up by the Publishers Association, by influencing “unworldly authors” to protest.