This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Business News HMV Timeline Retail Top Stories
Deloitte and Hilco comment on HMV sale, new CEO announced
By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 5 April 2013
HMV administrator Deloitte and restructuring specialist Hilco have issued statements regarding the latter’s acquisition of 141 HMV and Fopp stores in the UK. Confirmation of the deal came this morning, and will see Hilco, which already owns HMV Canada, take the UK business out of administration.
Hilco CEO Paul McGowan will be HMV’s new chairman, while Ian Topping, formerly head of retail firm the Steinhoff Group, will become CEO, leading a strategy that will see the company refocus on music and DVDs, rather than further pursuing the gadget route the entertainment retailer had taken prior to falling into administration in January.
In a statement, Deloitte’s Nick Edwards told CMU: “We are delighted to have completed the sale of HMV’s UK retail business to Hilco UK. The sale of the restructured portfolio secures the employment of 2643 staff, saves one of the world’s most iconic retail brands and provides a solid financial footing on which the business can be taken forward. We wish the Hilco UK and HMV teams every success with the business. I would like to thank all those stakeholders that have worked with us during the administration, but in particular the staff, suppliers and landlords for their support in making this deal possible”.
Hilco’s Paul McGowan added: “We have spent a number of weeks negotiating revised terms with landlords and the key suppliers to the business, all of whom have been supportive of our plans to maintain an entertainment retailer on the high street. We hope to replicate some of the success we have had in the Canadian market with the HMV Canada business which we acquired almost two years ago and which is now trading strongly”.
He added: “The structural differences in the markets and the higher level of competition in the UK will prove additional challenges for the UK business but we believe it has a successful future ahead of it”.
Meanwhile, Ian Topping said: “This is an exciting investment for the Hilco team and we will be able to use some of the developments already progressed in Canada to restore HMV to health. We intend to reverse the earlier decisions to sell tablets and other devices in the stores and to reclaim the space for an enhanced music and visual range. The reaction of the British public to the administration of HMV shows a strong desire for the business to continue to trade and we hope to play a constructive part in delivering that”.
As previously reported, as well as buying the HMV Canada business in 2011, Hilco has bought or taken control of a number of other failing UK high street retailers in recent years, including Borders, Habitat, Somerfield and Woolworths.
Its involvement in such companies is often controversial, mainly because it has a reputation for asset stripping and winding down firms where, sometimes, incumbent management, rightly or wrongly, believe there is a business to be saved. However, where Hilco believes more is to be gained by restructuring and rescuing its acquired companies that’s a strategy it sometimes pursues – sometimes successfully – and Topping’s statement confirms that is its plan for HMV UK.
The 141 stores included in the sale are: Aberdeen, Ayr, Banbury, Bangor (Wales), Basildon, Basingstoke, Bath, Belfast Donegall Arcade, Birmingham Bullring, Blackpool, Bluewater, Bournemouth, Bradford, Brighton Churchill, Bristol Broadmead, Bristol Cribbs, Bromley, Bury, Bury St Edmunds, Cambridge, Canary Wharf, Canterbury, Cardiff, Carlisle, Chelmsford, Cheltenham, Chester, Chichester, Colchester, Coventry, Crawley, Cwmbran, Darlington, Derby, Doncaster, Dundee, East Kilbride, Eastbourne, Edinburgh Fort Retail, Edinburgh Ocean Terminal, Edinburgh Princes Street, Exeter, FOPP Bristol, FOPP Cambridge, FOPP Covent Garden, FOPP Edinburgh, FOPP Glasgow Byres Road, FOPP Glasgow Union Street, FOPP Gower Street London, FOPP Manchester, FOPP Nottingham, Gateshead, Glasgow Argyle, Glasgow Buchanan, Glasgow Fort, Gloucester, Grimsby, Guernsey, Guildford, Hanley, Harlow, Harrogate, Hastings, Hatfield, Hereford, High Wycombe, Horsham, Hull, Inverness, Ipswich, Isle of Man, Isle of Wight, Islington, Jersey, Kettering, Kings Lynn, Kingston, Leamington Spa, Leeds Headrow, Leeds White Rose, Leicester, Lincoln, Liverpool One, Livingston, Llandudno, Maidstone, Manchester 90 Market Street, Manchester Trafford, Mansfield, Merry Hill, Middlesbrough, Milton Keynes, Newcastle, Newport (Wales), Northampton, Norwich Gentlemans Walk, Norwich Chapelfield, Nottingham Victoria, Nuneaton, Oxford, Oxford Circus, Peterborough Queensgate, Plymouth Drake Circus, Poole, Portsmouth Commercial Road, Portsmouth Gun Wharf Quay, Preston, Reading Oracle, Romford, Selfridges Oxford Street, Sheffield High Street, Sheffield Meadowhall, Shrewsbury, Solihull, Southampton, Southend Victoria, Southport, Speke Park, Staines, Stevenage, Stirling, Stockport, Stratford upon Avon, Stratford City Westfield, Sunderland, Sutton, Swansea, Taunton, Thanet, Thurrock, Truro, Tunbridge Wells, Uxbridge, Westfield London, Wimbledon, Winchester, Wolverhampton, Worcester, Worthing, Yeovil, York.
