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HMV close to securing new loan deal

By | Published on Monday 6 June 2011

HMV

The HMV Group could be close to signing a new deal with its bankers, Lloyds and RBS, which will bring to an end the imminent uncertainty over the entertainment firm’s finances.

As much previously reported, HMV has been struggling to meet the terms of previous loans – much of which were run up diversifying the retailer’s business into live music and digital – resulting in several months of tense negotiations with the group’s money lenders. It’s thought that, with the firm’s all important high street stores still flagging, the company now has in the region of £170 million in debts.

But the recent sale of the Waterstones chain for £53 million has, various newspapers claimed this weekend, helped persuade the banks to agree to a new loan package worth up to £210 million.

That deal is also in part based on HMV CEO Simon Fox’s newish strategy to expand the technology and gadgets section in HMV stores, a move which has enjoyed some success in six test shops, insiders say.

Fox recently told MCV that he saw the Waterstones sale as a “turning point” for HMV, adding that he was now hopeful to have his company’s finances restructured by late June “and then we will be free to drive the business forward and become an entertainment brand across all channels”.



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