Easons plans to invest €20m in expansion

Irish owned retailer Easons is planning to invest €20 million over the space of the next 3 years, which has beem hit hard during the recession. Its aim is to reconstruct the business by reducing its cost bas by €8 million a year. Easons loses halved to €10 million in the 12 months up to the end of January 2010. Managing director Conor Whelan said that the cost reduction programme would probably involve job cuts those being both voluntary and compulsory redundancies. Easons employs just under 1,000 staff but the cost reduction programme would also involve a store closure programme. Conor Whelan said he wants to maintain as much of the store network as possible, "We will look at it on a case by case basis, as we always do" Despite this,Easons is still Irelands biggest book store and there are still talks of opening stores in the near future in Balbriggan Co. Dublin, Mullingar in Westmeath and in Carlow. Mr. Whelan said that the €20 million investment programme would involve the renoavtion of a number of its shops, new IT systems, an upgraded online retail experiance and a new marketing and brand strategy. It will also reconstruct its bank debt. Easons turnoveraccounted to €193 million last year. The franchise is a family run business, run by 5 families, and they appointed 3 outsiders to non-executive positions last year. It has approximately 200 shareholders.