Administrators responsible for the restructure of HMV are understood to be announcing plans to close between 60 and 100 stores this week.
According to The Telegraph, administrator Deloitte’s plans to restructure the business could result in the loss of 1,500 jobs at the music retailer. The location of the stores set to be closed are yet to be finalised, but the chosen shops will remain open until all their stock has been sold.
HMV went into administration last month, putting over 4,000 jobs and 223 stores at risk, but hopes of a rescue deal have been raised after restructuring firm Hilco bought the company’s £176 million worth of debt. The company are believed to be in talks with record labels, suppliers and HMV’s landlords as part of a plan to keep the retailer afloat in some capacity.
Hilco, which turned around the fortunes of HMV’s Canadian arm, and Deloitte believe that for the chain to emerge as a viable high street retailer it must reduce its number of shops to between 120 and 160. Deloitte has already cut 60 jobs at HMV, which led to staff hijacking the company’s Twitter account last week.
In a string of messages on the company’s Twitter account, Poppy Rose Cleere, who was HMV’s social media planner, criticised the company for getting rid of people who wanted to help secure the long term future of the company: “There are over 60 of us being fired at once! Mass execution of loyal employees who love the brand,” read one message. Another stated: “Under normal circumstances we’d never dare do such a thing as this.”
She later revealed that she felt senior members of staff at HMV “never seemed to grasp” how important social media was in building links between themselves and customers. “I would apologise for the #hmvXFactorFiring tweets but I felt like someone had to speak. As someone without a family to support/no mortgage I felt that I was the safest person to do so,” she wrote on her own personal Twitter account. She later added: “I wanted to show the power of Social Media to those who refused to be educated.”