HMV to go into administration

High street music, DVD and computer games retailer HMV has confirmed that it is going into administration.

A statement released to Music Week reads:

“It is proposed that Nick Edwards, Neville Kahn and Rob Harding, partners of Deloitte LLP, will be appointed as the administrators of the Company and certain of its subsidiaries. The Company’s ordinary shares will be suspended from trading on the London Stock Exchange with immediate effect.”

The Financial Times wrote that the chain’s suppliers, including record labels, computer games makers and film companies, recently refused to give the business a £300 million loan to keep them afloat.

The money would have gone to paying off the company’s debt as well as to helping change the way the business is run.

4,000 jobs are now at risk.

At the end of last year, HMV sold its live music assets to a the private equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group in a £7.3 million deal.

HMV purchased MAMA Group in 2010 for £46 million but offloaded a number of venues – including the London establishments the Barfly and Jazz Café, the Manchester Ritz and Lovebox festival – to offload its debts.

The sale also included the Great Escape and Global Gathering festivals and HMV’s 50% interest in its Mean Fiddler joint venture with MAMA.

HMV sold another of its live music ventures, the Hammersmith Apollo, in a £32 million deal in 2012.