2023-04-28 12:12:07
British record store chain HMV will reopen on Oxford Street in central London later this year, four years following closing its flagship address.
“HMV is planning to return to Britain’s main thoroughfare following a four-year absence, with a new lease signed to confirm the reopening of its flagship store at 363 Oxford Street later this year,” an HMV statement read.
The Oxford Street site, its very first site opened in 1921, had been converted into a candy store since its closure. The group aims to reopen in time for Christmas, said a spokesperson contacted by AFP.
The new sign “will reflect the evolution of the HMV business concept, and will feature a wide range of pop culture items”, including vinyl, but also items related to film or television or “music technology”.
The record distributor had closed its flagship brand in 2019 following going bankrupt. The channel was bought the same year by Doug Putman, a Canadian businessman, owner of the Sunrise group, which owns record stores in Canada.
Mr. Putman had said he wanted to relaunch the brand, which has been facing persistent financial difficulties in recent years, once morest a backdrop of depression in the record and DVD market in the face of the boom in online music listening.
HMV (“His Master’s Voice”, La Voix de son maître) made music history in 1962 with the Beatles who signed at that time with EMI, the record company that belonged to HMV until 1996 .
The reopening of the Oxford Street store “is the latest sign of the dramatic turnaround” that began four years ago, a statement said.
The company returned to profit in its fiscal year ended at the end of May 2022.
HMV is planning the same store concept in 24 new locations in addition to 14 existing stores which will be adapted by the end of the year.
In total, HMV currently has 120 stores in the UK.
Mr. Putman, who speaks of a “new era for HMV”, notes in the press release that the opening of stores elsewhere in Europe, where the chain is not present for the moment, is also planned during 2023.
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