HMV faces the music as retailer calls in administrators
MUSIC retailer HMV said it was calling in the administrators, blaming a worsening market for entertainment CDs and DVDs, to become the latest victim of brutal trading conditions in Britain’s retail sector.
The accounting firm KPMG has been named as the administrator and intends to keep the business running while it seeks a potential buyer, HMV said in a statement.
Will Wright, Neil Gostelow and David Pike from KPMG’s Restructuring practice have been confirmed as joint administrators to HMV Retail Limited and HMV Ecommerce Limited, KPMG said in a statement late Friday.
The retailer, one of Britain’s bestknown high street stores, went into administration in 2013 before its rescue by restructuring specialist Hilco, but it has since been hit by competition from online rivals and music streaming services. Sky News earlier reported that about 2,200 jobs were at risk if HMV went into administration, adding that the company had been in talks with leading names in the recorded music industry for funding, but that those discussions came to nothing.
HMV was opened on London’s Oxford Street by English composer Edward Elgar in 1921 and made famous by the image of the ‘dog and trumpet’.
“During the key Christmas trading period, the market for DVDs fell by over 30 per cent compared to the previous year, and whilst HMV performed considerably better than that, such a deterioration in a key sector of the market is unsustainable,” said Paul McGowan, Executive Chairman of HMV and its owner Hilco Capital, which paid around 50 million pounds for the group in 2013. — Reuters