Business News Retail

Sports Direct chief bidding for HMV

By | Published on Monday 21 January 2019

HMV

Sports Direct chief Mike Ashley is bidding to buy HMV out of administration and, according to Sky News, has been talking to the record companies and music distributors about how he might go about trying to rescue the entertainment retailer.

HMV, of course, fell into administration for a second time over the Christmas break, with current owners Hilco blaming the latest collapse on high business rates, slumping DVD sales and a challenging Christmas quarter for high street retail in general.

Administrators at KPMG confirmed last week that offers had been made for the HMV business. Ashley had been tipped as a possible buyer pretty much as soon the administration process began, he having bought other retailers on the brink in the last year.

While most commonly associated with the Sports Direct chain he founded, Ashley’s company has stakes in a number of other retail businesses, including another entertainment retailer in the form of Game.

It’s thought that any bid would most likely be made through Ashley’s main parent company Sports Direct International, rather than any subsidiary in which it has a stake, like the Game Digital company for example. Though if he did acquire HMV, Ashley might seek to somehow formally ally it with the Game business.

For its part, KPMG is still yet to confirm who it is talking to about possible bids to buy all that HMV goodness.



READ MORE ABOUT: | |