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In the latest episode of Boardroom Uncovered, City AM's UK Editor Jon Robinson sits down with Phil Halliday, Managing Director of HMV, to unpack the storied retailer’s unlikely resurgence.
Once a cautionary tale of the high street’s decline, HMV has quietly engineered a turnaround, with Halliday at the helm steering Britain’s most famous music shop into the streaming age.
Far from a nostalgic throwback, Halliday argues HMV’s strength lies in curation and community, noting how vinyl sales have surged alongside the appetite for band merchandise and limited editions.
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Produced by: Jon Robinson, Joseph Curay Teneda, Matt Kenyon
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0:00
Retail is unfairly taxed versus other sectors. If you were prime minister for the day,
0:05
yeah, what would you do? I'd abolish business rates for HMV. Just for HMV, no one else.
0:10
Yeah, we feel within the retail community, I guess the BRC are good on this stuff. Um that there should be a
0:16
fairer distribution of tax burden and that re retail is unfairly taxed versus
0:21
other sectors. It sounds like retailers are trying to raise revenue, the revenue figures, just
0:26
to keep their heads above. Yeah, exactly. trying to outrun the costs. Yeah. Yeah. Hello and welcome to another
0:32
edition of City AM's Boardroom Uncovered with me, John Robinson. My guest for this episode is Phil Holidayiday, the
0:38
managing director of HMV. Phil took on the top job in August 2020 after HMV had
0:44
been rescued out of administration. While significantly increasing sales in recent years, HMV is still nonetheless
0:51
battling increasing competition from the likes of Spotify and Netflix, as well as the impact of the Labor government's tax
0:58
rises. So, what does the future hold for HMV? And can it not only survive, but thrive
1:04
in the years to come? Without any further delay, let's dive in. Well, Phil, thank you very much for coming on
1:10
board. It's great to have you. Thanks for having me. I suppose the only place to start being that you're the boss of HMV is to ask this question
1:17
which I think of all the questions that I've ever asked on this show might well reveal the most about an interviewee.
1:23
Right. What was your first album? Oh, my first album. We have this debate in the office. I I think it was um
1:30
Fleetwood Mac Tango in the Night. Oh, that's cool. But I also think it might have been The Simpsons Singing the Blues. Uh yes, a
1:38
com one of the other. You want to say the first one rather than the second one. Exactly. Yeah. Well, well, the first one's
1:43
definitely called The Mine. No, sorry. I completely forgot because I did remember exactly what it was. It was Phil Collins. But seriously, that was I
1:49
had a I had a sort of um a brain moment a little while ago and remembered going to the shop specifically to get that.
1:55
Yeah. Which shop? HMV. Of course, it wasn't. It was a like a back when they sold tapes at sort of your local whatever corner shop was. Yeah,
2:01
that's what I was going to ask what uh what medium it was on. Yeah, it was tape. At the time of tapes. Yeah. Mine CDs. Uh
2:08
now 42. Yeah. Okay. And at the same time, you too. All that you can't leave behind.
2:13
Okay. From the Virgin Megasaur in Peterbr. Right. Okay. There we go. Yeah. That was the early 90s, wasn't it?
2:18
Or Oh, late 90s. I sort of bought I think it was around sort of early 2000s. I actually bought those.
2:24
Um Yeah. Good. I think you listen to them, but listen. No. No, I don't think so. Oh, there's
2:29
probably some bangers on the now 42 album. Yeah, probably on the YouTube album as well to be honest. Yeah, that's true. Who sits down and
2:34
listens to an YouTube album? I don't know. The other night I was listening to with my friend. Yeah, it's funny that you say it. Having not never
2:40
really listened to them. We were like, we should we should spend some time listening to you, too. Maybe they need to drop another album on everybody's iPhone.
2:45
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But never really recovered from that. Yeah, exactly. HMV is definitely one of those iconic
2:53
British retailers. In the leadup to this interview, every time I mentioned that you were coming on the show, they said,
2:58
"HMV still around." People still saying that. People are still saying that. Yeah. But
3:03
there's a real world Yeah. where HMV isn't around. Yeah. Well, not that long ago since it
3:09
almost collapsed. Well, there's a lot of locations where there aren't HMBBS where there where there were. I think I was looking the
3:14
other day and they used to be 230 240. Now we've got 120ish depending sort of, you know, there's a bit of churn with
3:20
some coming in and out. So to people who live there, you know, there isn't isn't HMV. But um
3:27
yeah, definitely when I joined in 2020 and I would, you know, experience that person as well. People ask where you
3:33
work, what have you. And uh it's a bit of a running joke in the office is um when when that will be fully eradicated
3:39
as a sort of as a response. Um and we were going to get t-shirts made with all the locations on and stuff like that.
3:45
But increasingly I think you know our foot is up double digit year on year. Revenue's grown every year since 2020.
3:52
We're back on Oxford Street. We've got a couple of stores in Ireland, a couple in Belgium. Um and our market shares are enormous on
3:59
uh on a lot of the formats that we deal in. So, you know, it used to be a guess
4:04
a mainstream retailer because there wasn't any alternative if you wanted to consume music to buying singles or what have you. And now we're a specialist
4:10
retailer, I suppose. Um, so there, you know, there probably are a lot of people who won't necessarily feel the
4:16
need to come back, but we're there for for a growing core of people who uh either still have stayed with us or are
4:22
coming to us for the first time. I used to spend hours in HMV or Virgin Measur as it was then, another rival.
4:28
Yeah. of just spending hours just leafing through the albums and having a look at the posters and all the other
4:33
memorabilia sort of HMV sold. Yeah. Do you find that you the younger
4:39
generation now Gen Zeds do that? Yeah, I think they love it. I think they um I think they appreciate
4:48
a bit of kind of a a space where they're discovering stuff and it's not getting
4:53
served to them and uh no algorithm. No algorithm. Yeah. And maybe you're and you know the the beauty of a human
4:59
recommendation and stuff, but also yeah, flicking through things. It's a it's a bit of downtime, isn't it? I suppose. And um our stores are full of, you know,
5:05
the shift in the demographic um is enormous and they they definitely they definitely come in and respond very well
5:11
to that. Not just for music, but you know, um we sell sort of collectible special editions, DVD, visual products,
5:18
and the sales of sales that product up for the first time for a long time. M so I think they see that as coexisting I
5:24
think with the other ways that they maybe consume information and find find things. So yeah
5:29
because in a world dominated by Netflix and Spotify it's almost a surprise that HMV is still going
5:35
well in any form. Yeah. And that was the question mark for a long time and there was a lot of adjusting that had to had
5:42
to happen and I I always think sort of music retail was like the probably the first
5:47
sector to be really disrupted cuz you know everything was disrupted subsequently but piracy
5:52
um as it was you know you you can't consume a t-shirt digitally for example you still got to get the physical
5:58
t-shirt right so it was a bit slower to hit the other the other retailers um the evolution of the channels but music
6:04
retail was like almost immediate right the impact of of um of Napster and uh
6:10
and what have you. So um there were there was a long time I should assume when people were questioning whether
6:16
whether record labels would still have a have a role to play and everything but there is a kind of um a good equilibrium
6:22
I think that's been established between people consuming things on Spotify, people buying stuff from you know artist
6:27
websites and direct to consumer and people wanting to go to traditional high street retail. Mhm. Why do you think people would actually want to be
6:34
bothered, I suppose, to go into a HMV store and and spend the time looking for something when it's much easier to just
6:39
go and buy it on on Amazon? I think it's very functional, isn't it, Amazon? And you get, you know, it's
6:45
immediate and you might and it might be cheaper. Um, but that those aren't the only things that people value in life, I
6:52
suppose, and in in in um in what they want to get out of their time and their money. And they might not always be able
6:57
to articulate that to you and tell you tell you that, but they do, you know, they do come out to the high street in
7:04
large numbers to spend time or you spend an afternoon with someone or, you know, and our staff are incredible that we've
7:11
got in our in our stores, they're such a kind of um such an asset to the business and everything. And and I think when you
7:17
if you're young and you're looking for you're buying YouTube albums or or or now 42, whatever, you you find your
7:23
people kind of thing. I do buy other music that my taste haven't moved on. Just got to put that on the record.
7:28
But, you know, when you find your people and you find your environment and stuff, I think that's still important to young people and I think, you know, um other
7:34
people who remember record shops from before have stayed with us by and large. What kind of media are are people buying
7:40
in the stores then? Because you hear a lot about vinyl coming back. Is that something that is particularly um
7:46
popular in the in the shops? Yeah, vinyl's up, you know, it's been up every year for 15 years now, I think, or something like that. you know, from
7:51
probably quite a low base back after after it declined for a long time. Um, but the vinyl market grows year on year
7:58
and we grow as well. Um, CD, I think, is the surprise, but that that has a
8:04
resurgence that's growing for us. And, um, you know, there's interesting sort of uh areas within those two two
8:12
categories that you see things really happening. like K-pop is massive on CD, which is,
8:17
you know, um, an area that unless you're looking at it and aware of it, I don't think maybe sort of many
8:22
people over the age of 30 are aware of of that as a phenomenon, but it's driving a lot lot of CD and, you know, a lot of young young people
8:28
can't necessarily uh, get to the price point that vinyl gets to, and you still get a lot of the the uh, artwork and a
8:34
lot of the benefits from CD. So that as well, vinyl, you know, is the much publicized kind of
8:39
um, you know, the leader of that resurgence. But yeah, we our um 4K DVD
8:46
Blu-ray sales are up year on year as well. Any tapes? Well, tapes people we don't really I
8:51
mean I read about tapes but and they're always percentage growth rates that are cited but I think when you look at the
8:56
the unit value it's like up 20,000% or something but you know it'll be Taylor Swift would have done one sort of format
9:03
on tape or something. So you know if there's a demand for it we would uh you know hugely support tapes. I
9:10
think there would be, you know, there is some degree of nostalgia for them, but they're not a massive part of what we do.
9:15
People would have to remember how to rewind them. Well, yeah. Then maybe people would be copying them again and, you know, home
9:21
taping. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe they're not going to, but it's books as well. Yeah. That there's a big resurgence for you
9:26
because going into HMV store is a lot different to going into Water St. for example. Yeah. And it's Yeah. And that is a big
9:32
part of our thinking for the for the sort of near future. So we sell a lot of um after COVID we had to well and after
9:39
after the administration after COVID there was an obvious need to to do something with um with the business to
9:45
sort of get it going in a slightly different direction and we had to do do it very quickly because of the the the
9:50
context that we were working in you know and also because there was no films being made. So we didn't have any visual
9:55
new release which meant that the you know even when the stores were open we had a different product sort of uh
10:01
availability um you know different range of products available um and we put a lot of product in to the store that we
10:07
call pop culture which is kind kind of you youth orientated a lot of Asian culture graphic novel inspired um sort
10:14
of IP um and it did really well and like trading cards a lot of it Pokemon cards
10:20
and that kind of thing still around well enormous um you really Pokémon are a massive sort of
10:25
success story in that um in that world. But it it brought a younger customer back I think and is now why we're seeing
10:31
the football growth that we're seeing. Um but the bit that was missing we we thought was like I've got I've got kids
10:37
and they buy they'll be getting Pokémon cards from us and Funka Pops from us and a t-shirt from us and then they'd be going somewhere else to buy Percy
10:43
Jackson and How to Train Your Dragon and and those sort of titles. Doug, the owner, is a book. I mean, he
10:49
claims to read 300 books a year, but it's I mean, it's phenomenal, right? Call him on it, though. Are you? Uh, well, I don't say come on, name your
10:55
name what you've been reading, but he um he is a book, you know, he's a real book. He's an avid reader and he's a
11:00
real book lover. And um and then some other people in the business. It just seemed like an obvious um an obvious
11:06
area for us to do something that the customer would would would really enjoy us doing the way, you know,
11:12
doing it the way we do vinyl and everything. The staff love it. we've got half the staff are probably unpublished
11:17
authors I think you know so there's a real desire from them to be more involved in book um and then but then
11:24
when we brought someone into to look at it actually the type of book you know
11:30
that that is really connecting with the customer is something that we weren't really wasn't necessarily on our radar but the you know youth sort of
11:36
literature book talk kind of stuff romanty is looks like a phenomenal sort of area so
11:42
um yeah so books going be a big thing for us. I think um I think we can do it in a way that is fresh and exciting as
11:48
you say say you know what I I go to water st I love water stes it's probably we can probably do book differently to a
11:54
different type of customer and that's you know probably what we're what we're going to be aiming for you're not stuck in Boris Johnson's memoirs and things like that it's maybe
12:00
a different type of book we're looking for I suppose yeah you mentioned there that HMV's got a new
12:06
obviously collapsed into administration got bought out got saved by Canadian billionaire called Doug Putman
12:12
what's it like to answer to a billionaire. Well, I don't He might I don't know if that's a I don't know. I don't think
12:18
that's ever been press released that he's a he's a billionaire to be honest. I don't I can't speak to that. He's great. I get on really well with him.
12:24
He's um you know, they're uh it's a family business effectively. You know, he he work he took a firm that his dad
12:32
had founded and sort of expanded it and and was able to um take on some retail
12:37
chains that have been struggling in Canada and then came to the UK and and did it. And uh you know, he's he's
12:43
great. He often gives quite wise counsel on key key things. I find him like he's
12:49
quite decisive I think is the best thing about him. So if there's if you if you're like you know books is a good example. I was kind of like the guy that
12:54
we've hired actually Ben who's really great. I was you know I think he's the guy but he's not quite can't quite
13:00
figure it out and he was like well if you really think he's the you know he's the individual and you need to just go and
13:05
just make it happen because you know the opportunity is enormous and if that's the key part of it. So he's um he's
13:11
good. is he's you know he's good for a bit of advice. Yeah. I wouldn't expect you to say anything else to be honest with you whilst you're
13:16
still currently on the payroll but you can't just ring him up and just say you know Doug I need some extra money
13:21
for HMV got some spare change? No no no that's fair enough.
13:28
It's time for some quickfire questions now. You ready?
13:33
[Music] What was your first job? Paper round.
13:38
Tell me more. Mine was as well. I had two paper rounds actually. One uh a Sunday paper round and one that was a penny of paper.
13:44
Okay. Um and I never quite mastered the art of riding a bike with the all the papers on because I just kept falling. Only if
13:50
once you've given away half the papers could you balance. So yeah, 100%. Those Sunday papers must be an absolute nightmare because those
13:55
thick and also if you get one wrong they were in an order. So you'd get the whole the whole and then you have to go
14:01
back to the post office and you're going to get the last one rather than the first one. Yeah. Exactly.
14:06
Um who inspires you? Oh, when I was younger, I was very inspired by people like Alam McGee and Tony Wilson and uh I
14:13
suppose the people who facilitated what I still consider to be some, you know, really great music and art.
14:20
If you had to appoint a celebrity to your board, who would it be and why? God knows um
14:27
Liam Gallagher. Why Liam Gallagher? I just think it'd be fun. He'd cause some issues, I think.
14:33
Yeah, it'd be um you know, you'd probably make some interesting decisions. He'd have some opinions at least. He wouldn't be sitting on the
14:39
fence or something. I I don't know if he'd hold his attention for a whole board meeting, but maybe it could be five minutes down the
14:44
line or something. Exactly. Yeah. What's the best thing about your job? Oh, I love loads of stuff about my job. The best thing
14:51
the culture of HMV, which was there before I started and it'll be hopefully be there when I leave, but it's not, you
14:56
know, it's a real pleasure to work among. And if you're not doing this job
15:02
anymore, what would you be doing? I'd like to go and study. I'd I'd probably go back and study e economics,
15:08
I think. Okay. Need to brush up on your economic skills. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, fair enough. Understand what's going on here.
15:14
And finally, if you were prime minister for the day, Yeah. what would you do? I'd abolish business rates for HMV.
15:20
Just for HMV, no one else. Let's let's talk about that. Why would you abolish business rates?
15:26
No, I wouldn't abolish them entirely. I think I would um that there needs to be a sort of we feel within the retail
15:32
community, I guess the BRC are good on this stuff. um that there should be a fairer distribution of tax burden and
15:38
that re retail is unfairly taxed versus other sectors. Okay. Um uh you know I think if you look at
15:45
the the sort of contribution to GDP versus contribution to tax revenue um it is it's disproportionate and it
15:52
and it seems like there's a sense that it's easy pickings I think probably to
15:57
to go and you know levy levy retail and for years there's been a been talk of
16:02
business rates reform. that's never quite happened. This year, you know, uh there is meant to be come
16:10
April a different business rate system that will benefit smaller properties. I think um it's not
16:18
been I think some some of the legislation has been has been passed up to laws, but I don't don't know if it's been, you know, I guess we'll find out
16:24
in November in the budget whether it's completely going to happen. I don't think everyone is definitely banking on
16:29
it yet because it's been postponed so often. Um, so that's I think a fair a
16:35
fair distribution is what what we would like. Sounds like you'd be tempted to absolutely just get rid of business rates alto together.
16:41
Um, I mean these are complicated questions, aren't they? I I I think there are
16:46
places where they're prohibitive to like you know or they've definitely been a contributory factor to lots of retailers
16:53
leaving areas and then once that momentum goes from an area I think it's difficult to get it back and the impact
16:58
on that area can't be positive you know so what is the the overall loss of sticking rigidly
17:05
to this you know you've got empty loads of empty units that the landlord is paying the business rates on so the tax
17:11
revenue is still being collected but you've lost the jobs and the the community hub and you know all of those
17:16
things that follow it. It's not a fair fight then for retail. I think that's probably the sense. Yeah.
17:21
Yeah. And sorry just to go back even when the reduction comes in is for properties below a certain value. So most of our properties will fall into
17:27
the into that level but we've got a few that will be over the threshold and that they'll go up. So if you're
17:35
John Lewis I'll use as an example they're going to they're going to actually be penalized I should think by
17:40
the change. So even then you're like what you know what does that really do for retail? is probably not nuanced
17:46
enough to to address the the problem. Talk about the tax burden that HMV and other retailers similar to yours face at
17:52
the moment. Obviously, you got the budget last year which raised a lot of taxes and businesses had a big effect I
17:58
know on on HMV. Um what what is the tax burden that
18:03
you're currently facing? Well, numerically. Yeah. Well, it's just a lot. It's just a lot. I mean the impact that
18:10
it's genuinely had on the business, you know, you've got the rise in employees national insurance contributions. You got the rise in the in the national
18:16
minimum wage. The problem is they go they go hand inhand with, you know, the minimum wage
18:22
um escalation was about it reaching the mean 66% of the mean salary, wasn't it?
18:28
I think um and obviously wages of although they've not necessarily kept up inflation, they've been pushed up by inflation,
18:34
right? So and we get impacted by inflation on every cost line. So it's not just that's the headline is the
18:39
minimum wage, but it's a function of electricity and you want to refit a store, the building, the capex, the, you
18:46
know, all of the all of all of the elements. So it's been, you know, we have this discussion, we're going to see all of the um managers in
18:53
the stores once a year and and we've always we've had really good revenue growth and it always looks great and you Yeah.
18:59
You know, and I was looking at some other accounts of some other businesses that we were sort of speaking to and
19:04
they and it's the same story everywhere. you see revenue growth and then when you go down the P&L it's it's been expensive
19:10
you you know you at best you're kind of out running the costs you know and um I think in I was looking the cost
19:16
of running like a little store for us um well we have a standard number of people we would have in it has gone up
19:23
by like I think 45% in in four or five years it's enormous and in a lot of
19:28
those markets where you've got that level of headcount and that level of store you your revenue hasn't gone up 45% we've had good revenue growth but
19:34
it's not you in those those locations, it wouldn't have gone up that much. Yeah. That much. So, there is just a
19:40
there is obviously a need to generate further tax revenue. There's a need, you know, we want to pay our staff an amount
19:46
of money that works for them. Um, and want to give them opportunity to progress and get promoted and all that sort of stuff, but um it feels like the
19:55
um the consequences maybe are are difficult to to anticipate when you put in something so significant and so
20:01
quickly. It sounds like retailers are trying to raise revenue the revenue figures just to keep their heads above
20:09
trying to outrun the costs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because when the the budget was announced obviously last October and
20:14
then came the taxes came to effect in April. I think that HMV said that you were going to stop opening new stores as
20:20
a result. Mhm. Is that still the plan? Are you still sort of frozen on the number of stores that you've roughly got at the moment?
20:26
Well, there isn't a huge amount in the pipeline for the UK. Um, we have some
20:32
stores hopefully that we're going to be opening in Ireland and in um in the Netherlands actually.
20:38
Um, yeah, it's tricky in the UK and it's it's difficult because you're often operating on kind of um,
20:46
you know, forecasting is an art, not a science. Your revenue number is yeah, you know, there or thereabouts. So, the
20:52
more you load costs on the like less headroom you've got to take a bit of a bit of a gamble on a on a property. So,
20:58
it's not that everything is immediately underwater, but you just you end up in a sort of I don't know if I definitely
21:03
want to do that um at the moment. So, um, we were we we we're always looking at stuff, but, um,
21:10
I think there is there might actually be a new store in Peterbr, funny enough, they just said, I think that's the only
21:15
one that we're really looking at, and we've been moving some stores and and, you know, um, continuing to update the
21:21
estate, but yeah, it's um, it's tricky and that's just because of the decisions
21:26
that the local government and Rachel Reed has made in particular in the last sort of year or so. Um
21:33
I mean they're responding to a set of circumstances that are but even above their head I suppose you know the global
21:40
situation you know the fuel um the rocket in fuel prices we saw a few
21:46
years ago and then interest rates and uh you know they are in charge at the moment I suppose but that you know you
21:52
look around most countries seem to be having similar similar problems so I guess it's their job to sort it out right but but I I'd
21:58
be loathed to you It's one it's one set of decisions within a within a whole load of stuff
22:04
that you just got you got to try and manage your own ship. Budget coming up on the 26th of
22:10
November. What would you like Rachel Reeves to include in that budget? Well, I think if they if they you know
22:16
stick to their um pledge with the business raise that would be really good.
22:21
I think if the minimum wage methodology is stuck to I think that will be slightly softer than it has been before.
22:28
Um I think if they can leave retail aside from that to to to sort of settle
22:33
down and you know there's been some administrations here stretcher and Claire's and um some other retailers
22:39
that that haven't had a great time then I think the sector needs they could really do with a year a year to
22:46
get his feet you know find his feet after the last budget. So that's what I would ask for. Yeah, because there
22:51
retailers going into administration and hospitality as well is the other thing, you know, we we we see them as a
22:56
sort of especially with the music on the music side, we see them as a kind of companion kind of sector and the rate
23:02
that bars and clubs and things are closing is phenomenal and it's the similar set of set of challenges that
23:08
they face. Yeah. And just before we have anybody emailing in about pound stretcher, it's pound land that's having trouble. Pound
23:16
stretcher will not be happy with us uh if I don't correct that, but it's poundland. um body care uh it's just
23:21
gone into administration CLA's obviously it's tough on the UK high street and that's where you
23:27
you're operating do you feel like the government Rachel Reeves is on your side
23:32
I honestly don't really think about it like that I honestly don't I'm not trying to dodge a question
23:38
I suppose I don't feel necessarily like retail is viewed
23:45
with the it's not a shiny new toy ever because it's not right I guess and you get you know
23:51
AI you know how are we going to attract more AI sort of um based companies and
23:57
how are we going to get people are going to come and list and and yeah you know what and neuro um
24:03
they call it like sort of neuroscience uh companies and that's you know and how does that influence patent law and how
24:09
are those going to be the big economic drivers of the future and people who are really you know industrialists probably feel the same is
24:16
like it's it's never quite the headline I think it's probably true. Um, and that
24:22
that's a bit of a shame because I think the types of jobs that we offer and the economic value that's generated in the
24:27
country is significant enough that it it warrants,
24:32
you know, warrants um a slightly higher priority perhaps. Do you think that retail doesn't get the
24:38
credit it deserves for the size of the economy it represents? There are nations
24:44
of shopkeepers of course. Yeah, I mean I don't know how you would get that credit. like I don't know what you know if someone from a representative of the retail community
24:50
should get up and get a badge or something but um you know what are the success I suppose you look at what the success stories you
24:57
know if you're thinking about some of the other sectors you you tend to get a prominent business that is championed as the you know this is the Brit Britain
25:03
can do this and this is a great a great example um so do you get that in retail
25:10
I'm not sure you do actually because if you look at a company like JD Sports that's global an enormous global
25:15
retailer with enormous sort of um revenue and and sort of profit
25:21
actually. How often do you read about that as a an example of um a really a
25:26
really fantastic story? Something was started in Manchester, wasn't it? And um you know so so perhaps yeah perhaps
25:33
it doesn't you know cuz what were that a story from another sector maybe maybe it would be
25:39
getting more focused. And do you see obviously we've talked previously about um you pausing sort of expansion plans
25:46
in the UK. What would it take for those plans to be taken off ice reheated and
25:51
and actually put into action? The business rates change will will help you know and some certainty around the
25:57
minimum wage. Those things always help. And then you know for us we get through another another you know we're always working on the
26:03
business rights. There's a lot of infrastructure and internal process bits that we're working on and supplier
26:09
relationships and things like that. So, it's not like we're just sitting around waiting for something to change that
26:14
will make it better. So, you know, there's it's pretty simple really. You've got a revenue line and a load of cost lines, right? So, we can influence
26:20
our own revenue line as long as you know you say consumer spending power etc is a is a factor. But, um you know,
26:28
talking about books, talking about that sort of thing. We've got plenty of ideas to to keep keep momentum up in our top
26:33
line. And I suppose the other bit of the question that will be answered in November is on the on the cost line. So,
26:38
you know, hopefully between those two factors, you can open some more stores. Yeah. Fingers crossed.
26:44
Yeah. Uh what does the future hold for HMV then? Assuming that everything stays the same, you know, there's not big business
26:50
rates, changes in in the budget, what is the next five years look for like in for
26:55
HMV? Yeah, I think um I think we can we can continue to provide, you know, do
27:02
the things we're doing really well. We've got an enormous events program. So, we have like I think we've had 7,000
27:07
sort of grassroots events in our stores over the last three or four years. So, as in terms of it being a community hub,
27:13
we're continuing to really push that and you know, moving into books, we would welcome more sort of author based events
27:20
and things like that. So, I think you know that journey will will continue. Um
27:25
uh and then you know in terms of sort of business strategy we're keen to continue exploring the European uh opportunities.
27:32
Tell me about that where whereabouts on the continent. Yeah. So the bit we used to have a business in Ireland and we we opened a
27:37
store in on Henry Street in Dublin uh in 2023 and then we've opened a store this year in Limmerick and hopefully we're
27:42
going to have a couple more. We've just started shipping into Ireland from our website. Um so that that was a bit more
27:49
of an obvious sort of place for us to look for expansion opportunities. But the other side of it is um on mainland
27:56
Europe where we opened a store in Anworp in 2023. We've opened one in Brussels and then we're hopefully opening another
28:02
couple in the Netherlands and that's a bit of a slower burn because there's a bit more for us to figure out just in
28:08
terms of everything like getting the product there, the supply, the customer, you know, it's new new territory, but um
28:14
the signs signs are encouraging. So we would we would hope that that becomes a serious growth um opportunity for us. It
28:20
sounds like it's more attractive for a company like yours to expand in Europe
28:25
rather than in the UK. Well, we've got we're in 120 locations in the UK, so there aren't loads of
28:32
markets we would further markets we would look at. Um, but but in Europe there's, you know,
28:38
if we can if we can if we if we have what people are looking for in Europe and and and we we can do it in a way
28:44
that makes sense, then there's there's just loads of opportunity. So even if the UK was really thriving, I mean, I think HMV actually tried to open stores
28:50
in Germany in in the ' 90s. So really, you know, it's it's um it's quite a an obvious thing to be
28:57
honest if you're looking at what we're going to do next. It's like, well, we'll go, you know, see if there's some opportunities over there. I mean, given the world is dominated by
29:03
spot Spotify, Netflix, like we talked about, is the size that HMV is now really the biggest it could be in 2025?
29:12
It's so different to the way the economy retail worked 20 years ago when it had
29:17
more than 200 um in terms of the store estate. You mean
29:22
maybe it's close to um capacity in terms of number of locations but what you can
29:29
you know you could always have bigger stores in those locations and you could have I don't know you know if you'd said in 2020 that you'd go you know that
29:35
you'd be in the situation you're in now you know you'd probably not had that on your on your plan as been the most
29:40
likely outcome. Sure. Um, so who knows? Yeah. But but I think we'll we'll um
29:46
we'll see. And I asked you at the start, what was your first album that you bought? What's the latest album that you bought?
29:52
The latest album that I bought um the latest album that I bought. What did I buy recently? It was Nor Coleman jazz
29:59
record I bought. You got a cool It's not Simpson, is it? Yeah, you've come a long way.
30:05
Definitely. Phil, thank you so much for your time. It was great to meet you. Cheers. Cheers.
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