January 16, 201312 yr Author They're in receivership - don't know how (or if) that differs from being in administration but it does say that "It is understood the intention was for the HMV stores in Ireland to be closed on Wednesday on a temporary basis." It's now confirmed that all the Irish stores have ceased trading and are all displaying signs saying 'Closed Until Further Notice' - Apperently it's to do with when companies in Ireland go into administration they are not traded as a going concern and only reopen if a buyer if found, Not sure how much of an impact the closure will have on sales in Ireland as there seems to be quite a few independent retailers over there as well as a few Tower stores?
January 17, 201312 yr Just visited HMV Truro, walked out with a few things, nice to have the 25% discount. Depressing thought that it may be the very last time I visit a proper record shop.
January 17, 201312 yr Our store is closing on the 23 Jan (Weds), until further notice, looks like its in limbo until someone takes it over or hasta la vista.
January 17, 201312 yr EE has confirmed that 78 of its retail locations around the UK will be closing in 2013 in order to cut costs http://www.knowyourmobile.com/blog/1769978...e_closures.html oops, who's next.... Sorry... off topic.
January 17, 201312 yr EE has confirmed that 78 of its retail locations around the UK will be closing in 2013 in order to cut costs http://www.knowyourmobile.com/blog/1769978...e_closures.html oops, who's next.... Sorry... off topic. To be fair they have more than a few too many stores after all the Orange and T-Mobile stores were all rebranded EE. I don't think they'll be going anywhere soon if thy can afford to have Kevin Bacon on all their adverts.
January 17, 201312 yr They have 3 stores in Dundee alone and two on Union Street in Aberdeen within 50m. Two of their stores in Dundee are on different floors of the same, small, shopping centre. I would have expected them to close a lot more than just 78.
January 17, 201312 yr We have two EE's in Swindon with one small shop in between, where we once had an orange and a t-mobile, so makes sense they'd be shutting a fair few down now. "This thread makes me want to tear my eyes out, delusional idiots who can't see six feet in front of them. CDs will survive as long as people are willing to pay a little extra to have a physical copy of an album. If they're not then so be it, digital albums will take over if download stores are clever enough to undercut the physical by enough to make it worthwhile. In an age when even ignoring illegal downloads music is cheaper than ever I cannot see how the idea of paying for an album is going to disappear." While he might not fully understand business concepts, and probably doesn't claim to, I can't see why Big Mistake is getting so much abuse on here. I completely see where he is coming from when he says that download albums will never replace physical ones. I think that even if the vast majority of physical purchasers can be wooed over to the download format they just won't buy whole albums in the same way online, but cherry pick things, which is why the singles market is somewhat artificially buoyant, if you only counted the sales of products actually marketed or planned as singles then the singles market probably wouldn't be anywhere near as healthy looking. And he said something about there being no difference between a legal and illegal download, I agree that since the result is virtually the same file on your computer either way there isn't really a strong incentive to want the legal version, whereas with physicals an illegal cd would always look wrong in some way and a legal one somehow more real and satisfying. Probably the overall question for the health of the music industry is whether the continually increasing back catalogue track sales can compensate for the loss of sales in complete albums.
January 17, 201312 yr According to Digital Spy Game are interested in buying 45 HMV stores. http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/news/a4...hmv-stores.html
January 17, 201312 yr According to Digital Spy Game are interested in buying 45 HMV stores. http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/news/a4...hmv-stores.html Hmm risky move if you ask me.
January 17, 201312 yr 50 expressions of interest? That's pretty incredible. The EE stores that are closing are doing so without a single loss of jobs as the staff are moving to different stores.
January 17, 201312 yr Hmm risky move if you ask me. All stores in places they have no presence. Sounds like their new owners are looking to grow sales. Sounds like a smart move to me as long as they take short rents so they can cut their losses and get out of loss making stores quickly.
January 17, 201312 yr 50 expressions of interest? That's pretty incredible. I wonder how many of them are those actually sincerely interested or in a real position to make a sensible offer for HMV, and how many of them are just being nosy? If I rang up Deloitte and said I was interested, would that make it 51 expressions? Just glad they didn't appoint PWC as their administrators. Would make my upcoming interview a lot more awkward.
January 17, 201312 yr What are Game playing at? They'll find themselves back in administration if they don't learn from their past mistakes, surely the reason that they initially had to shut stores in a lot of towns is because they weren't profitable locations.
January 17, 201312 yr I wonder how many of them are those actually sincerely interested or in a real position to make a sensible offer for HMV, and how many of them are just being nosy? If I rang up Deloitte and said I was interested, would that make it 51 expressions? Just glad they didn't appoint PWC as their administrators. Would make my upcoming interview a lot more awkward. I can't imagine they would bother counting it if the offers weren't submitted with some form of plan given how much Delloitte and the music industry have spoken to the press about wanting to keep the company as a going concern and ensure it has a future. I talked about the Tax Avoidance of Amazon and Starbucks. If you are going for an Audit job you could talk about what PwC could do differently if they were the administrator. What are Game playing at? They'll find themselves back in administration if they don't learn from their past mistakes, surely the reason that they initially had to shut stores in a lot of towns is because they weren't profitable locations. They had a lot of double locations from their takeover of Gamestation. Most of the stores they closed were in locations they had multiple stores which split the markets between the two stores. So they doubled their costs for no extra income.
January 18, 201312 yr All stores in places they have no presence. Sounds like their new owners are looking to grow sales. Sounds like a smart move to me as long as they take short rents so they can cut their losses and get out of loss making stores quickly. This is what I see as well. Risky business move, and I'm not surprised they had a good Christmas sales period.. I'm sure FIFA and CoD keep Game alive! HMV did similar with Zavvi and look where they are now. It's a big risk for a company that has only just stabilised again.
January 18, 201312 yr Author The investment company that bought 'Game' will be wanting to make the company as attractive as possible to buyers when the decide to sell the company and with Christmas trading exceeding market and company expectations then they seem to have clearly worked things out within the company - Also HMV if it continues will be in a smaller capacity meaning there is market share up for grabs. With Game getting strong sales they are in an excellent position to get high volumes of stock from suppliers something which HMV and some of the Supermarkets have struggled with also im sure that suppliers will be keen to support them with product launches etc,
January 18, 201312 yr The investment company that bought 'Game' will be wanting to make the company as attractive as possible to buyers when the decide to sell the company and with Christmas trading exceeding market and company expectations then they seem to have clearly worked things out within the company - Also HMV if it continues will be in a smaller capacity meaning there is market share up for grabs. With Game getting strong sales they are in an excellent position to get high volumes of stock from suppliers something which HMV and some of the Supermarkets have struggled with also im sure that suppliers will be keen to support them with product launches etc, But the gaming market clearly isn't sustainable unless there's major releases. This year might be an anomaly because GTA5 will be released, but usually there are no major major releases until the 4th quarter. Even though if HMV goes and there is one less high street competition, I don't see how this really helps the matter because Play and Amazon still exist. I'm sure a lot of Games profits rests from pre-owned games, and from the next generation of consoles they're wanting to make sure you can only buy brand new games. You'd have to be either pretty optimistic, or have no business knowledge at all to buy Game for a large price. If it's mismanaged it will fall back in to administration.
January 18, 201312 yr Author But the gaming market clearly isn't sustainable unless there's major releases. This year might be an anomaly because GTA5 will be released, but usually there are no major major releases until the 4th quarter. Even though if HMV goes and there is one less high street competition, I don't see how this really helps the matter because Play and Amazon still exist. I'm sure a lot of Games profits rests from pre-owned games, and from the next generation of consoles they're wanting to make sure you can only buy brand new games. You'd have to be either pretty optimistic, or have no business knowledge at all to buy Game for a large price. If it's mismanaged it will fall back in to administration. I still think if they continue to manage them as they have then there is still a profitable market out there for 'Game' - And the part of London i live in if HMV go it will leave a Tesco selling a Top 8 CD and Top 5 game chart and Morrisons doing a Top 20 chart of each so in the right locations there will be sufficient demand for a Game store which im guessing is the type of locations they will be looking at. Also the company that owns 'Game' deals with companies in Administration so im guessing they know they can bargain hard on rents/leases etc,
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