Gardners takes over Bertrams assets

The Little Group has confirmed that it has purchased the assets of Bertram Trading Limited, which includes the assets of Bertram Books, Bertrams Library Services, and Dawson Books. The Group has stressed that it has not purchased the trading company and will not be trading the business in Norwich as Bertrams.

“Trading as Gardners this will now give us extra warehouse capacity in addition to the Eastbourne operation and allows us to continue to expand our services, range and stockholding in the coming months and years.

“We strongly believe this will further enhance the opportunity to work even closer with retailers and publishers to grow sales in all channels at home and abroad in these very changing and varied times.

“For our suppliers and customers there will be little visible operational change and all will continue to interact, communicate and order with their established Gardners contacts and departments from the Eastbourne operation as they do now.”

Bertrams’ joint administrators, Turpin Barker Armstrong, said in a statement: “We can confirm there has been no sale of Bertram Trading Limited (in administration) or Dawson Books Limited (in administration), though selected assets of these two entities have been purchased by an unconnected third party.”

The administrators are responsible for settling any debts/creditors of Bertram Trading Limited and Dawson Books Limited.

The deal with The Little Group was concluded earlier this week. The administrators are still on-site at Bertrams’ Norwich facility, which is expected to reopen as a books warehousing and wholesaling operation as a fully-integrated part of Gardners later on this year.