‘Sleeves are rolled up’: New Booktopia boss on revitalising the business

Booktopia’s new owner, Shant Kradjian, says he wants to preserve the Australian-owned identity of the online bookseller, which will delist from the local stock exchange.

Kradjian said he had admired Booktopia for years after founding online camera store digiDirect in the mid-2000s, adding the two ecommerce businesses shared many qualities.

Consumer electronics retailer digiDirect’s founder Shant Kradjian is the new owner of Booktopia.

“As it [Booktopia] was declining, I kept a closer eye on it. As soon as it went into administration, I reached out [and thought] there could be something there,” he said.

Kradjian said he had met book publishers and authors, who had expressed it was important that Booktopia remained in local hands.

Under his ownership, authors will be able to continue to hold regular book signings, which the chief executive said was a “point of difference” from other interested parties.

“The brand has got a lot of good value. That was a big thing for publishers, authors, being Australian and not giving the business to Amazon,” he said. “I’m taking on the CEO role. I’ve got my sleeves rolled up. This is not a side investment for me. I’m playing an active role in this.”

Shant Kradjian is the chief executive of the new Booktopia business.

The business and all its assets were transferred to Kradjian, on Friday evening, for an undisclosed sum. Kradjian is adding 100 jobs back to the recently collapsed bookseller, with former employees encouraged to return to the business.

Senior management and the board directors of the former entity will not be part of the new business, Kradjian confirmed on Monday.

Booktopia’s website, which is still not accepting orders, is expected to begin trading later this week, with an official launch campaign expected to follow in the coming fortnight.

“We want our warehouse full, we’re placing orders with suppliers as we speak. We’ll stock up inventory,” said Kradjian.

‘We bought this unencumbered, we have no debt into the business … it’s kind of a clean slate and gives us a bit of an advantage.’

New Booktopia owner Shant Kradjian

Booktopia and digiDirect may one day share certain business functions, such as warehousing and logistics, or a chief financial officer or head of digital that sits across both companies.

“But the two businesses will be separate. I don’t want to cross-promote, or lose what each brand stands for.”

Under new ownership, Booktopia will be run as a private business. As part of the sale process, Kradjian has not taken on Booktopia’s Rhodes office or any of the expensive debt Booktopia incurred.

“We bought this unencumbered, we have no debt into the business. To not pay the big interest rates they were paying previously, it’s kind of a clean slate and gives us a bit of an advantage.”

Booktopia’s warehouse in Sydney.Credit: Julian Andrews

McGrathNicol remain administrators of the old entity and will prepare a report for creditors and arrange a second creditors’ meeting in the coming weeks.

Customers who made orders placed before the bookseller went into administration have been encouraged to get in touch with their credit card provider to request a chargeback.

Kradjian is honouring gift cards from the past 12 months. “A lot of customers, suppliers, have lost out. We’re trying to give some customers what we can.”

Secured creditors of Booktopia’s former entity include lender Moneytech and employees owed wages. These employees will have to make claims under the Fair Entitlements Guarantee, which is the government’s last-resort scheme to help workers recover entitlements after their employer has gone bankrupt.

“The vast majority of employees will have a claim. There are certain caps depending on category of entitlement … We’ll help them. We’ve already gone out to all of them to confirm what they owe in each of those categories,” McGrathNicol administrator Keith Crawford told this masthead.

Following the second creditors meeting, the old Booktopia entity will “almost certainly” be put into liquidation, a process that will be handled by the current administrators.

“I think the prospect of a return to ordinary unsecured creditors after the employees and Moneytech have been paid back – I’m not expecting there to be a significant return at this stage … unless we can recover something out of the investigation as liquidator,” Crawford said.

Booktopia appointed voluntary administrators in early July after coming under financial strain following three straight years of unprofitability.

Then-Booktopia CEO Tony Nash after ringing the ASX bell in 2020. The company will be taken off the stock exchange.Credit: Steven Siewert

In the past 18 months, it has made at least 90 jobs redundant; its share price has lost 98 per cent of its value, and a revolving door of senior executives, including its most recent chief executive, David Nenke, who resigned after one year in the job.

Kradjian believes the fundamentals of Booktopia’s business are strong and plans to use its highly automated warehouse to support his growing digiDirect business, a consumer electronics retailer that specialises in camera equipment and made $235 million in revenue in the 2024 financial year.

He hopes the two businesses will soon be able to turn over a combined half a billion dollars.

“Even in the last year of trade, [Booktopia] was close to $160 million in revenue. And that was while it was limping,” Kradjian said. “I think we could very quickly build the business back up.”

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