HMV reportedly looking to close up to 100 stores

Between 60 and 100 of the 223 existing HMV stores may be closed by its administrators, the financial services firm Deloitte and HMV Canada owner Hilco, reports The Guardian.

Citing "a source close to HMV," The Guardian said the store closures could lead to as many as 1,500 layoffs, although stores on the chopping block would reportedly stay open until they run out of their current stock. HMV's administrators are still deciding on the specific HMV locations that would be closed.

Hilco and Deloitte are said to believe that in order for HMV to emerge from administration as a company that can continue to exist, it must cut its retail footprint from 223 locations to between 120 and 160 stores.

Deloitte is running HMV operations while the company is in administration, the U.K.'s rough equivalent of bankruptcy proceedings, which it entered in mid-January. Hilco purchased HMV's unsecured debt from the company's lenders for approximately £40 million, giving it control of the bankrupt company's future but not acquiring the retail chain outright.