One fund, five bookshop names: the chain of control, with the company numbers
Five bookshop names, one controller, and the register says so in public. Waterstones changed hands on 1 June 2018, Foyles on 25 October 2018, Blackwell’s on 28 February 2022, and Barnes & Noble on 7 August 2019. Hatchards has no trading company of its own at all. Every company number and filing below was read off the register on 4 September 2026.
Ownership pages usually say “owned by Elliott” and stop. The useful thing is one level down: which company actually trades, what its number is, which entity the persons-with-significant-control register names as controlling it, and the filing that carries the date. That is what the table holds. Where the register cannot answer, it says so rather than reaching for a secondary source.
The table
| Brand | Trading company | Controlled by, per the register | Control changed | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Waterstones | Waterstones Booksellers Limited 00610095 Active. SIC 47610, retail sale of books in specialised stores | Book Retail Bidco Limited (11284041), then Book Retail Midco Limited (11309674), then Paul Elliot Singer as an individual | 1 June 2018 | Not independent. A national chain, controlled through a fund structure. |
| Foyles | W. & G. Foyle Limited 00945131 Active | Book Retail Bidco Limited (11284041), the same Waterstones holding company | 25 October 2018 | Not independent. Same controller as Waterstones. |
| Blackwell's | Blackwell UK Limited 00796591 Active. Incorporated 17 March 1964, formerly Blackwell Retail Limited | Blackwell Limited (02762961), whose controller since 7 August 2022 is Waterstones Booksellers Limited (00610095) | 28 February 2022 | Not independent. 143 years of family ownership ended on that date. |
| Hatchards | Waterstones Booksellers Limited 00610095 Active. The company that carries the Hatchards name, Hatchards UK Limited (02368576), is Active but dormant, SIC 74990 | The Waterstones chain above, terminating at Paul Elliot Singer | 1 June 2018 for the trading company. See the note below on the date this row does not have. | Not independent. Inside Waterstones, so inside the same chain. |
| Barnes & Noble | Barnes & Noble, Inc. CIK 0000890491 Private since 2019. SEC registration terminated by Form 15-12B on 19 August 2019, its last EDGAR filing | Chapters Holdco Inc., a Delaware corporation, held by funds advised by Elliott Advisors (UK) Limited | 7 August 2019 | Not independent, and not checkable the way the others are. See the note on the regime difference. |
| The fund itself | Elliott Advisors (UK) Limited 02989338 Active. Incorporated 11 November 1994, Park House, 116 Park Street, London W1K 6AF, SIC 96090 | Not disclosed. Its own PSC register carries one active entry recorded as a protected person, with the details withheld under the Companies House protection regime | n/a. This is the controller, not a company that changed hands | Not a shop. The point of the row is that it is the answer to every other row. |
The evidence for each row
Waterstones
PSC02 and PSC07 both filed 28 August 2018 against 00610095: notification of Book Retail Bidco Limited, and cessation of Waterstones Holdings Limited, each dated 1 June 2018. PSC01 filed 24 December 2020 notifies Paul Elliot Singer from the same date. Announced by The Bookseller, 26 April 2018.
Foyles
PSC02 filed 5 November 2018 notifying Book Retail Bidco Limited from 25 October 2018, and PSC07 filed 8 November 2018 recording the cessation of William Richard Christopher Foyle on the same date. Corroborated on the same filing history by AP01, filed 1 November 2018, appointing Achilles James Daunt and Paul Best as directors with effect from 25 October 2018.
Blackwell's
Three filings against Blackwell Limited (02762961), all submitted 31 March 2022: PSC07 recording the cessation of Julian Blackwell on 28 February 2022; PSC02 notifying Oxford Booksellers Limited (13915327, registered at Elliott Advisors, 116 Park Street, London); and PSC01 notifying Paul Elliott Singer. The PSC register of 00796591 itself records Paul Elliot Singer from 28 February 2022. The acquisition vehicle was replaced by Waterstones Booksellers Limited on 7 August 2022 in a group reorganisation.
Hatchards
Hatchards UK Limited (02368576) files dormant accounts, most recently to 3 May 2025, so it cannot be operating the shop. The trade sits in Waterstones Booksellers Limited, whose PSC chain is the first row of this table.
Barnes & Noble
Form 8-K, accession 0001193125-19-214770, filed 7 August 2019: 82.15 per cent of shares tendered at 6.50 dollars in cash, the company continuing as the surviving corporation and a wholly owned subsidiary of Chapters Holdco Inc. Delisted the same day by Form 25-NSE. Barnes & Noble's own About page still states that it is owned by Elliott Advisors (UK) Limited.
The fund itself
Named as the Offeror in Barnes & Noble's own press release of 7 August 2019. Related to Elliott Investment Management L.P., a Delaware limited partnership, SEC CIK 0001791786, whose general partner is controlled by Paul Elliot Singer per an SC 13D filed 16 October 2023.
The chain, written out
Waterstones Booksellers Limited is controlled by Book Retail Bidco Limited, which is controlled by Book Retail Midco Limited, whose sole person with significant control is an individual: Paul Elliot Singer, born August 1944, American, with a correspondence address at Elliott Management Corporation, 280 Park Avenue, New York. Every one of those three companies is registered at 203 to 206 Piccadilly, London, which is the Waterstones head office.
The detail worth sitting with is that no company carrying the Elliott name appears anywhere in that chain. Elliott Advisors (UK) Limited is a real company, number 02989338, and it is named as the Offeror in Barnes & Noble’s own announcement, but it is not on any PSC register in the Waterstones structure. The chain runs from a bookseller to two holding companies to a named individual, and stops. Anything between Midco and Singer is not registrable in the UK, which is to say it is not visible here.
A company incorporated in 2026 to hold both sides
Waterstones Barnes & Noble Limited, company 17071369, was incorporated on 4 March 2026 at the same Piccadilly address, with SIC 47610, retail sale of books. Its sole person with significant control is Waterstones Booksellers Limited. Bloomberg reported on 7 May 2026 that Elliott had selected banks for a London listing of the combined bookselling business, with Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan arranging. The listing has not happened. What can be stated as fact is the incorporation and the PSC entry, both of which are on the register, and they are the kind of fact that usually precedes the other one.
The row that could not be fully dated, and what we did about it
Hatchards is the oldest bookshop in London and the register cannot tell you when Waterstones acquired it. The persons-with-significant-control regime only begins on 6 April 2016, the historic Hatchards bookselling company is no longer on the public register at all, and no dated primary press source for the acquisition was found. Secondary sources place it in 1998. We have not printed that year as a fact anywhere on this page, because a sourced table with one encyclopaedia entry in it is a table you cannot trust the rest of.
What the register does show is that the company holding the Hatchards name, Hatchards UK Limited (02368576), is dormant, and has filed dormant accounts as recently as May 2025. A dormant company cannot run a shop. So the Piccadilly shop trades inside Waterstones Booksellers Limited, and the date its control last changed is 1 June 2018, the same as everything else in that company.
What the register does not settle
Three honest limits, all of them things a reader would find if they went looking.
Which company books the money. W. & G. Foyle Limited carries SIC 99999, dormant company, while filing subsidiary accounts with a parent guarantee. Blackwell UK Limited carries SIC 74990, non-trading. Within this group only Waterstones Booksellers Limited carries a bookselling SIC. So the shops keep their names on the door while the trade appears to be booked centrally, and the register does not tell you exactly where the line falls.
Who controls the fund. Elliott Advisors (UK) Limited’s own PSC register shows a protected person with all details withheld, which is a legitimate use of the Companies House protection regime and also the end of what the public record will tell you.
The regime difference on the American row. Barnes & Noble, Inc. is a Delaware corporation, so there is no company number, no PSC register and no annual confirmation statement. It has filed nothing with the SEC since August 2019. Its ownership is evidenced by the 2019 merger filings and by the company’s own statements, not by a register anyone can re-read tomorrow. That is a weaker kind of evidence than the four UK rows carry, and it should be read as weaker.
James Daunt, dated
James Daunt runs the lot, and he is also the counter-example. He has been a director of Waterstones Booksellers Limited since 28 June 2011, with no resignation recorded when the register was read on 4 September 2026, and he has been chief executive of Barnes & Noble since August 2019, most recently reported in the present tense by Fortune on 10 August 2026. He is also a director of Daunt Books Limited, company 03068928, and has been since 5 July 1995. That company is his own, and on the register it looks like exactly what it is: an independent bookseller.
Questions
Who owns Waterstones?
On the public register, Waterstones Booksellers Limited (company 00610095) is controlled by Book Retail Bidco Limited (11284041), which is controlled by Book Retail Midco Limited (11309674), whose sole person with significant control is Paul Elliot Singer, the founder of Elliott. That chain has been on the register since 1 June 2018. No company carrying the Elliott name appears anywhere in it.
Do Foyles, Blackwell's and Hatchards have the same owner as Waterstones?
Yes, and the register shows three different routes to it. Foyles is controlled directly by Waterstones' own holding company, Book Retail Bidco Limited, from 25 October 2018. Blackwell's came in on 28 February 2022 through a purpose-made vehicle, Oxford Booksellers Limited, and was moved under Waterstones Booksellers Limited on 7 August 2022. Hatchards has no trading company of its own: the company holding that name is dormant and the shop trades inside Waterstones Booksellers Limited.
Is Elliott a private equity firm?
It is usually described as an activist hedge fund rather than a private equity firm, and the distinction is real, but it does not change what this page measures. Under our definition a business is not independent if it is owned or controlled by a fund, whichever kind of fund it is, because the ownership and the returns leave the area either way.
Highstreett is a search engine for products and places that tells you who owns what, puts independents ahead when it’s close, and points you to an independent seller wherever it can.
Two pages next to this one, for different reasons. Independent alternatives to Waterstones answers the question this page raises, which is where to go instead, and names ten shops. Independent alternatives to Amazon for books runs the same ownership method across the online routes, where the surprise is AbeBooks rather than Foyles. And how we check sets out what a Companies House check can and cannot establish, which is the method this page is an example of.