HMV is bringing down the shutters on 66 shops, threatening 930 staff. After an angry employee hijacked HMV's Twitter last week, the retailer's administrators have finally revealed which stores are to be axed.
The 66 branches of the ailing music, DVD and games chain will close over the next two months. Read on to see if your branch is to be axed.
In England, stores will close in:
- Ashton-under-Lyne
- Barnsley
- Bayswater
- Bexleyheath
- Birkenhead
- Birmingham Fort
- Blackburn
- Boston
- Bournemouth Castlepoint
- Bracknell
- Burton-upon-Trent
- Camberley
- Chesterfield
- Croydon Centrale
- Durham
- Fulham
- Huddersfield
- Leamington Spa
- Leeds White Rose
- Liverpool Speke Park
- London Trocadero
- Loughborough
- Luton
- Manchester Market Street
- Moorgate
- Orpington
- Rochdale
- Scunthorpe
- South Shields
- St Albans
- St Helens
- Stockton-on-Tees
- Tamworth
- Teesside
- Telford
- Wakefield
- Walsall
- Walton-on-Thames
- Wandsworth
- Warrington
- Watford
- Wellingborough
- Wigan
- Wood Green
- Workington
In Scotland:
- Dumfries
- Edinburgh Fort Kinnaird
- Edinburgh Gyle Centre
- Edinburgh Ocean Terminal
- Edinburgh Princes Street
- Edinburgh St James Centre
- Falkirk
- Glasgow Fort
- Glasgow Silverburn
- Glasgow Braehead
- Kirkcaldy
In Northern Ireland, these stores will go:
- Ballymena
- Belfast Boucher Road
- Belfast Forestside
- Coleraine
- Craigavon
- Derry
- Lisburn
- Newry
- Newtownabbey
In Wales, only the Wrexham branch will close.
Although not named in the list of doomed shops, HMV's flagship Oxford Street store is also thought to be under threat. The 50,000 square-foot shop could raise around £6m if sold to interested parties, said to include H&M, Zara and JD Sports.
As many as 100 of HMV's 220 branches were reported to be under threat earlier this week, so 66 store closures is better than feared. That is, of course, small comfort for those staff who face losing their job -- fingers crossed they can find something before stores close their doors over the next couple of months.
Around 190 jobs have already been lost at HMV's head office and distribution network, prompting a disgruntled employee to hijack the company's official Twitter feed with angry tweets. The mystery whistleblower called it a "mass execution of loyal employees" and lamented that the company had been "ruined".
HMV went into administration last month. Restructuring expert Hilco has bought the company's debt, and could now take full control of the chain to ensure it survives -- albeit in drastically reduced form.
[Source: CNET]