I know Booktopia intimately, and I can say that neither Amazon nor (the lack of) overseas book buying had anything to do with Booktopia's demise. Nor did the lack of direct sales of education books. In FY21 Booktopia delivered $12.8m in EBITDA. Amazon was already operating in Australia and Booktopia was receiving weekly airfreight consignments from the USA and UK. It was operating smoothly and profitably. How do you think it made $12.8m? BTW - In 2021 31% of Booktopia's sales were to going to primary, secondary and tertiary school students. In short it was doing just fine thank you very much. Why do you think it was valued at $2.30 per share at its IPO?
The root cause of Booktopia's failure was the decision in late 2021 - early 2022 to go on spending spree with new offices at Rhodes in Sydney, an ill-conceived investment in a UK Book distributor, seeking acquisition targets in Canada that costs approx. $1.5m and didn't generate a cent and a massive failure in the management of its various distribution centres which led to huge stock shortages and delays in sending books to customers. Despite the best efforts of it Non-Executive Directors, the Executive Management of the company from Dec 2020 to May 2022 were solely responsible for the destruction of shareholder wealth to the tune of approx. $16m. On top of this was the ACCC fine of $6.0m. This is being paid via instalments of $1.5m per annum, and was caused by one person failing to review the company's terms and conditions before the IPO. The ACCC is now a creditor for approx. $4.5m.
A substantial number of fabulous people across the business were dismayed at the behavior of the executive management during this period. Almost all of them were ultimately dismissed, made redundant or forced to resign due to the incompetence of of 2 people. That is the truth about Booktopia's corporate failure.
BKG Price at posting:
4.5¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
