HMV has been – in the most part – saved!
100 stores from the chain have been acquired by Doug Putman, owner of Canadian music chain Sunrise Records.
His bid beat a rival offer from Sports Direct and underfunding the transfer activity of Newcastle United’s Mike Ashley, and a management buy out.
It’s the second time Putman has stepped in to rescue HMV stores, after previously taking on a number of Canadian outlets to expand the Sunrise chain.
He’ll keep 100 stores open under the HMV name, with four Fopps remaining. 27 stores were not acquired, and will close immediately with 455 redundancies.
“We spent the last little while trying to negotiate a deal that made sense for everybody,” Putman told BBC Radio 4, “keeping as many stores open and as many people employed as possible. We’ve been able to come up with a great deal that allows 100 of the stores to continue on.”
“We can confirm we are going to keep HMV, it’s just a fantastic heritage brand coming up shortly to the 100 year anniversary. It’s just so iconic, I feel really lucky to be able to say that we can continue to call it HMV.”
