The parent company of Barnes & Noble is no stranger to acquiring independent bookstores across the Atlantic Ocean.

But Tattered Cover would be the first in the U.S. under Barnes & Noble’s new leadership.

Bended Page LLC approved a bid from the book retailer to buy Denver’s iconic and nationally-acclaimed bookstore for $1.8 million in cash, according to court documents filed Monday. Most of the purchase price will go toward paying off Tattered Cover’s debts and getting it out of bankruptcy.

Barnes & Noble agreed to keep the Denver institution’s name and all four of its stores open — the only bid to do so, according to a Tattered Cover spokesperson. The company also negotiated to extend leases for the stores on Colfax Avenue and Littleton’s Aspen Grove shopping center.

While it’s clear Bended Page has been looking for a way out of bankruptcy, why would the nation’s largest bookseller with more than 600 locations take on the struggling bookstore?

Offering answers, Barnes & Noble’s CEO James Daunt spoke with The Denver Gazette on Tuesday to talk about the reason the big-box retailer put in a bid and what Tattered Cover’s future would look like once the sale closes.

Daunt emphasized that under his leadership, Barnes & Noble isn’t a corporate behemoth looking to consolidate independent bookstores, but rather aiming to “rescue” them.

The acquisition still has to be approved by the federal bankruptcy court and is expected to close no later than the end of July.

Daunt, the independent bookstore owner of Daunt Books since 1990, took the lead at Barnes & Noble in 2019, when Elliot Investment Management acquired the U.S. chain. The move followed the success he had turning around Waterstones — the U.K’s equivalent of Barnes & Noble — which ended up acquiring the century-old independent bookstores Foyles and Blackstone’s.

Barnes & Noble first took notice of Tattered Cover because it filed for bankruptcy, Daunt said, and he himself took a personal interest because of his experience as an indie bookstore owner.

“We wanted to be sure that Tattered Cover continued. There’s nothing, frankly, worse than bookstores closing,” Daunt said. “But particularly an extremely storied and famous and revered bookstore like Tattered Cover.”

How does buying Tattered Cover fit into Barnes & Noble’s growth strategy?

The bookselling industry has had a tumultuous decade with the rise of online shopping platforms like Amazon.

After the financial crisis and recession in 2008, federal data shows book sales at physical stores declined for more than a decade and reached its lowest point during the pandemic in 2020. Barnes & Noble closed stores and its main competitor Borders no longer exists.

Then book sales rebounded after the pandemic and Barnes & Noble adopted a new strategy that allowed it to expand.

But its plan to grow and get back into communities that have lost bookstores during the decline is completely separate from buying Tattered Cover, Daunt said.

“When you rescue independent booksellers of the Tattered Cover sort … You’re not doing that to grow,” Daunt said. ”You’re doing it to keep those bookstores alive, to ensure that they continue in business.”

How does Barnes & Noble plan to get Tattered Cover back to profitability?

While it may be the biggest bookselling chain in the U.S., Daunt said the old chain model hasn’t worked well in most countries and it hasn’t worked for Barnes & Noble, either.

“It’s all about bringing the ethos and philosophy of independent bookselling into the chain. And until you do that, the chain doesn’t work,” Daunt said. “But once you do it, it works very well.”

Daunt’s new strategy has been imitating independent booksellers and giving store teams more power in ordering books and laying out displays to cater to local tastes.

With Tattered Cover, Daunt said he aims to keep its teams in place to make decisions on how to run its stores. The difference now is they have more money backing them.

“Our job is, in a corporate sense, just to give them the infrastructure and the capitalization, which allows them to run really good bookstores,” Daunt said. “Barnes & Noble stopped being the ‘You’ve Got Mail’ corporate beast when I took over. I’m not that.”

The CEO said he plans to discuss with the store’s teams on what they think will help Tattered Cover’s sustainability, but added that one of the biggest things Barnes & Noble can fund is stocking shelves with books. That’s one of the reasons why Tattered Cover needed to restructure in order to fund the influx of orders in time for the booming holiday season last year.

He also said Barnes & Noble will work to ensure the store teams feel confident and skilled in managing the stores themselves, rather than relying on the chain.

There may be some synergies between loyalty and membership programs, he said, but for the most part Barnes & Noble plans to keep the brands separate.

“They will be running Tattered Cover,” Daunt said, “They’re not running some sort of B&N version of Tattered Cover.”

Why did Barnes & Noble set a condition on extending two leases to make a deal?

Part of Barnes & Noble’s bid asked to adjust two leases to have two five-year lease extensions for Tattered Cover’s flagship location on Colfax Avenue lasting until 2038 and a five-year renewal in Littleton to 2030.

When asked about this, Daunt said it is part of securing Tattered Cover’s physical locations.

Barnes & Noble didn’t just buy the bookstore to preserve its name, he explained.

“Tattered Cover is its people and its people working in physical locations. That is what physical bookstores are,” Daunt said. “That is what I firmly believe in. And that’s what I want to preserve.”

Does Barnes & Noble aim to acquire more independent booksellers in the U.S.?

At first, the chain’s CEO said no.

But then he emphasized that Barnes & Noble is interested in Tattered Cover because the indie store’s struggles led it to bankruptcy.

It’s not about seeking more bookstores to “gobble up,” he said, but stepping in when it becomes “imperative.”

“It would be great if there was an independent bookseller who was taking them over or anything else,” Daunt said. “But, in the absence of that, then we do provide an extremely supportive and I hope, very responsible and good home for them.”

And it would have been “awful” for the bookselling community if Tattered Cover went out of business, he added.

Every bookstore — whether its Tattered Cover, Foyles or Blackstone’s — has its own culture, heritage and way of doing things that aren’t easy to replicate and should be treated with respect, he said.

“And you mourn them if they disappear,” he said. ”Tattered Cover is absolutely in that tradition of great bookselling and we just should, and need to, keep it alive.”