HMV has been sold to Sunrise Records & Entertainment Limited, whose shareholder is Doug Putman, owner of Sunrise Records in Canada.
Sunrise Records & Entertainment Limited will take on 100 stores across the UK, and 1,487 store and head office employees will transfer as part of the deal. The stores will continue to trade as HMV, with four stores continuing to trade as Fopp.
But 27 stores have not been bought and will close immediately with 455 redundancies.
Staff at the affected stores are being spoken to today (February 5) and a list of the shops affected is expected later today.
The administrators will retain a further 122 employees at warehouse functions to assist them in winding down operations.
Will Wright, Neil Gostelow and David Pike from KPMG’s Restructuring practice were appointed joint administrators on 28 December 2018.
Will Wright, partner at KPMG and joint administrator 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.”
Doug Putman, CEO of Sunrise Records, said: “We are delighted to acquire the most iconic music and entertainment business in the UK and add nearly 1,500 employees to our growing team. 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.”
It is not yet clear whether the HMV store at Westwood Cross is one of those that has been saved.
The Westwood Cross store employs 13 full time members of staff
The HMV collapse was blamed on a decline in the UK CD and DVD market with Christmas sales this year down 30% on 2017. It was the second time in 6 years administrators had been called in, the last being in 2013 when restructuring form Hilco came to the rescue.
HMV was founded in 1921 and over 97 years, has sold a range of products including audio, books, CDs, DVDs, video games, as well as an increasing range of movie, television and music merchandise.