HMV in trouble?

[Larry]

After work tonight I walked up to the HMV opposite Bond Street tube. It's gone! Very quickly it would seem.

I think a lot of the shops will go pretty quickly but it will be interesting to see if those branches earmarked for closure will have half price closing down sales or will alll the stock just be moved to another branch or back to the warehouse.

[Philipnet]

What HMV could do is Sale Or Return: http://www.expressandstar.com/busine...-troubled-hmv/ where HMV pay the supplier for the goods when the goods are sold and not upfront. If the goods don't sell, then HMV return them to the supplier at minimal cost to themselves. This is a model WHSmiths operate for magazine.

[Stuart Wallis]

Though not, as an aside, for books neccessarily. WHS Loughton has had a copy of Doctor Who: The Shooting Scripts on their shelves since 2006, would you believe!

[Darren]

How do you know it's the same one? They may have sold 20 and and kept restocking.

[Llordllama]

Maybe it's stuck in a time loop.

[Si Hunt]

How do you know it's the same one? They may have sold 20 and and kept restocking.

[Rob McCow]

I've never seen one before, Sir - no-one has. But I'm guessing it's a White Hole.

[Si Hunt]

So what is it?

Si.

[Jon Masters]

Just waggle his tail

[Stuart Wallis]

How do you know it's the same one? They may have sold 20 and and kept restocking.

Slight damage to the dustsheet, sustained not long after it first arrived.

[P-Bal]

Is that a confession?

[Stuart Wallis]

No comment!

[Dirk Gently]

A White Hole?

[Darren]

So what is it?

[Rob McCow]

And the Waterstones is gone!

From The Independent:

HMV got the go-ahead for the sale of its Waterstone's book chain today after the deal received the overwhelming support of shareholders.

The ailing retailer is selling the 296 store-chain to Russian billionaire Alexander Mamut for £53 million as it looks to secure its immediate future.
Based on votes lodged before today's meeting in London, investors owning 99% of the company's shares consented to the deal. It means the transaction is on track to complete by Tuesday.

Proceeds from the move will help the company pay down some of its £170 million debt pile and buy some time as it looks to reposition the business, which has been rocked by competition from supermarkets and internet downloads.

Lenders made completion of the Waterstone's deal one of the conditions of new banking facilities worth £220 million through to September 2013.

Mr Mamut plans to reposition Waterstone's, which employs 4,500 people, as a regional and local community-orientated bookseller, although he has not said whether this will result in store closures.

HMV hopes to revive its core business by selling more gadgets such as iPads and iPods and developing its live entertainment division.

Where will this end?

[Si Hunt]

With the Master?

Si.

[Anthony Williams]

Welp, hopefully this will mean that Waterstone's once again becomes a quality bookchain, rather than focusing on the lowest common denominator as it has been in recent years, having moved into selling lines of toys, DVDs/whatever else HMV thought would increase it's profits.

Unfortunately, as a former employee for Waterstone's, I felt that HMV were wrong. And it showed in their sales figures. And that resulted in store managers being bullied by regional managers. Which then resulted in staff being bullied by their store managers.

Mamut's talk of repositioning the chain as a community-orientated bookseller bodes well to me. I'm stereotyping here, but the Russians are well known for their love of literature, and I firmly believe that re-invigorating the chain will be a labour of love for Mamut, and this is shown through his placing James Daunt as Managing Director.

Fingers crossed that Waterstone's will once again be an excellent place to work and shop again.

[Stuart Wallis]

I hope so. Takeovers are incredibly nervous times for firm, staff and client (methink you got out just in time if Mr. Mamut is thinking of downsizing, Ant!); but by gum, if only it could be made into a top-notch bookstore again. In the absence of the late lamented Books Etc. it's about time we had a shop which makes bookbuying worthwhile again.

[Anthony Williams]

Well, I did leave just over a year ago, Stuart!

If Mr Mamut is thinking of downsizing, then good on him. Do towns like Reading really need two stores within five minutes' walk of each other? I think not!

Waterstone's made so many bad decisions when under the aegis of the HMV Group. They became over-bloated, and brought in too many ridiculous ideas. Like their distribution "hub", which was meant to improve efficiency - all it did was create more work for staff, who found that they still had to order direct from Bertram's or Gardener's in the end, when the Hub failed to deliver.

Downsizing would be the best business strategy for the W at the moment, I think.

[Stuart Wallis]

Waterstone's made so many bad decisions when under the aegis of the HMV Group. They became over-bloated, and brought in too many ridiculous ideas. Like their distribution "hub", which was meant to improve efficiency - all it did was create more work for staff, who found that they still had to order direct from Bertram's or Gardener's in the end, when the Hub failed to deliver.

Sounds like a number of firms, particularly those who think that pointless training days or downsizing in the areas that actually need as many people in them as possible are good business decisions.

I'm not going to argue whether Waterstones needs to restructure, since you're in a better position to know about these things than I am.

[Dino]

And here's what could be the final nail in it's coffin. But then it depends, do you agree with the Workfare programme that basically lets businesses profit and continue by using people working for their benefits? I don't funnily enough.

http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?page_id=16

Haringey Council
Helen & Douglas House Hospice – Maidenhead
HMV [3]
Holiday Inn
Holland & Barrett

Oh dear. So Amazon for my stuff in future it is then...