I’ve gone through the Dave Walker re-posts. There was an article in the Church Times dated May 15th 2008. This was at the time the Brewers tried to sell the Exeter shop.
Bookshops withdrawn from sale:
An extract, talking about the reasons that the four shops that were to have been auctioned this week were withdrawn from sale.
There are thought to be two reasons for the halt. One is that the transfer of ownership to SSG has not been completed. The other is that the Brewer brothers, who run SSG, have been reminded of a seven-year restrictive covenant that accompanied the transfer of all the freeholds from SPCK in October 2006. This states that the shops can only be used as Christian multi-denominational bookshops. This covenant would apply to any prospective purchaser.
Prognosis: Expect a whole lot of ugly jewellery in all bookshops soon. Booksellers will become jewellery sellers.
On this the anniversary of the great take-over maybe you might want to listen to this.crtl1027071
2008/10/21 at 7:22 am
So any bookshop that’s been sold on to a new owner, and is being used for something else, is in breach of the covenant?
2008/10/24 at 3:13 pm
Exactly. Might help the SPCK to get rid of the Brewers – if they want to.