Ottakar's

Ottakar's was a chain of bookshops in the United Kingdom founded in 1987 by James Heneage. Following a takeover by the HMV Group in 2006, the chain was merged into the Waterstone's brand.

History

James Heneage established the Ottakar's chain in 1987, taking inspiration from The Adventures of Tintin book King Ottokar's Sceptre. He saw a lucrative market in small towns which lacked a Waterstones branch and opened stores in Loughborough, Brighton, Banbury, Salisbury and Trowbridge. A number of Ottakar's stores drew on the Tintin connection and had walls painted with scenes from the series. The Ottakar store in Bromley, Kent had a large rocket taken from the Tintin novels so that children could play inside it. Above the rocket was a cartoon picture of the night sky to add to the effect.

The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1998 and expanded rapidly, making a number of acquisitions including small bookstores in the West Country, eight branches of James Thin Booksellers in 2002, and twenty-four branches of Hammicks Bookshops Ltd, a company with 35 years of bookselling history, in April 2003. By mid-2006, the chain had shops in 141 locations throughout the United Kingdom.