This week we received one of our more interesting contacts from a source.. telling us about the improbably named "operation phoenix"..
No this isn’t some Alistair McLean plot turned into a 70’s movie starring David Niven Gregory Peck et al.
Instead we’ve learnt that a certain Butterworths (UK) director decided it would be a good idea a few years back to sell off titles on their list that didn’t seem to be generating much revenue. These titles were sold to former employees for a very small sum of money. For some reason the director had forgotten about new editions. So with titles gone and a razor taken to the editorial staff at the time. Butterworths generated good short term profits ..
The problem for Butterworths was.. so did those former employees who sensibly produced good new editions at reasonable prices and sold them worldwide.
The name of that company .. Tottel.
Now Bloomsbury have purchased Tottel and hopefully with competent management they’ll have one of the better print legal catalogues on the planet
How it could be dubbed "Operation Phoenix" by those in charge at Butts(UK) is beyond HOB…. we’re glad to see that former staff were the ones to rise from the ashes.
Once again a Lexis Nexis company has managed to make a business decision that we think would send those Dragon’s Den entrepreneurs screaming from the room.
