HMV in talks to cut debt by selling shops

The troubled music retailer HMV is in talks to sell a batch of its stores to pound shops and a sports retailer to reduce its mountain of debt.

Poundland and Pound World are negotiating to take five shops each, while JD Sports is interested in at least six. HMV, which owns the Waterstone’s book chain and music retailer Fopp, is under pressure to sell parts of its business to reduce its debt, which stood at £151m

This is from the Independent but the news is the same everywhere. I’m really torn on this one as I do believe there is room in the market for a scaled down HMV while realising that that will always mean a presence in Edinburgh. I’ve had record distributors this week ask me to stock quite big artists because HMV are either unwilling or not able to do so and who knows what their stocking policy will be after the current hiatus is over.

What does annoy me is that I have had several people in the shop having bought the PJ Harvey album for £20 on vinyl from FOPP when we have it for £15.99 with a free print. I’m about to invest in getting more new vinyl in and while we will do well I’m sure selling to those visiting Edinburgh I’m at a loss what to do to attract those locals who would rather pay considerably more than they have to especially as on CD people seem to be so price conscious.