Canadian music mogul buys HMV
Canadian music mogul Doug Putman has beaten off competition from Mike Ashley to buy the businesses and assets of HMV.
Administrators at KPMG confirmed that Sunrise Records & Entertainment, whose shareholder is Doug Putman, owner of Sunrise Records in Canada, will acquire 100 shops across the UK.
The stores will continue to trade as HMV, with four stores continuing to trade as Fopp, and 1,487 shop and head-office employees will transfer to the new ownership as part of the transaction.
Canadian music mogul Doug Putman has beaten off competition from Mike Ashley to buy the businesses and assets of HMV.
Administrators at KPMG confirmed that Sunrise Records & Entertainment, whose shareholder is Doug Putman, owner of Sunrise Records in Canada, will acquire 100 shops across the UK.
The stores will continue to trade as HMV, with four stores continuing to trade as Fopp, and 1,487 shop and head-office employees will transfer to the new ownership as part of the transaction.
A further 27 stores, which were not bought as part of the transaction, will be closed with immediate effect, resulting in 455 redundancies.
The closed stores are in Ayr, Bath, Bluewater, Britstol Cribbs, Chichester, Exeter Princesshay, Fopp Bristol, Fopp Glasgow Byres, Fopp Manchester, Fopp Oxford, Glasgow Braehead, Guernsey, Hereford, Manchester Trafford, Merry Hill, Oxford Street, Peterborough Queensgate, Plymouth Drake Circus, Reading, Sheffield Meadowhall, Southport, Thurrock, Tunbridge Wells, Uxbridge, Watford, Westfield London and Wimbledon.
The administrators will retain a further 122 employees at warehouse facilities to assist them in winding down operations.
HMV appointed Will Wright, Neil Gostelow and David Pike from KPMG’s restructuring practice as administrators on 28 December 2018
Putman said: “By catering to music and entertainment lovers, we are incredibly excited about the opportunity to engage customers with a diverse range of physical format content, and replicate our success in Canada.
“We know the physical media business is here to stay and we greatly appreciate all the support from the suppliers, landlords, employees and most importantly our customers.”
Wright said: “We are pleased to confirm this sale which, after a complex process, secures the continued trading of the majority of the business. Our immediate concern is now to support those employees that have unfortunately been made redundant.”
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