Waterstones Booksellers Limited, trading as Waterstones, is a British book retailer based in London, England, owned by the American investment group Elliott Investment Management. It operates 311 shops, mainly in the United Kingdom and other nearby countries. As of February 2014 it employed around 3,500 staff in Britain and Europe. The average Waterstones branch sells a range of approximately 30,000 individual books, as well as stationery and other related products.