HMV boss: We want candy stores on Oxford Street, we just don’t need 10 of them
Daniel Woolfson
7 min read
Doug Putman is urging ministers to introduce a tax on online sales targeting tech giants such as Amazon - Heathcliff O'Malley
The Canadian tycoon who rescued HMV has criticised the Chancellor for “penalising and punishing” retailers with tax hikes, as he said raising business rates could curtail the chain’s expansion plans.
He said: “If you’re trying to get more businesses to open up on high streets, you need to incentivise them. If you keep penalising and punishing, you’re going to get the direct opposite result of that.”
Putman, who in 2021 vowed to open as many as 70 new HMV stores within two years, says he is now less enthusiastic about taking on new sites.
“I don’t see us opening an awful lot of stores next year,” he says. “There’s nothing that would encourage me to do it. So unless something changes, we’ll be cautious.”
One change he is urging ministers to make is the introduction of a tax on online sales, specifically targeting tech giants such as Amazon “instead of consistently penalising the brick and mortar retailer, as this Autumn Statement has done yet again”.
“Why are you not looking at Amazon?” he asks. “Because the truth is that the ‘war of online’ is over. Everyone lost, Amazon won.
“If they are trying to balance budgets and come up with more money, I don’t think the solution is taking more from a group of businesses that are already suffering.”
In 2021, Putman vowed to open as many as 70 new HMV stores within two years - Heathcliff O'Malley
However, whether HMV is suffering is another question, as Putman last week reopened the company’s flagship London store on Oxford Street after a four-year hiatus.
The opening of the 10,500sq ft is a highly symbolic milestone for the resurgent HMV, because it was formerly the site of its first and longest-standing store, which opened in 1921 but closed in 2019 when HMV collapsed into administration.
“I would have loved to have done it when the bankruptcy had happened,” says Putman. “But the rates and the rents just didn’t make it feasible.”
Its opening comes amid a major push to revitalise Oxford Street, which has been plagued by empty stores and high crime rates in recent years.
“It’s still an iconic street despite the candy stores,” says Putman. “But you need to have a variety of retailers. You want a Waterstones, you want a HMV, you want clothing, you want a nice broad mix of things. You do want a candy store. But do you need 10? No.”
Raised in Ontario, Canada, Putman is reportedly a billionaire at just 39 years old. He owns Toys R Us and vinyl chain Sunrise Records in Canada.
By his own admission, he is not a well-known figure in City circles, although this has not prevented him from turning around a retailer that few thought would survive the rise of streaming and digital music.
In 2018, HMV was buckling under the pressure of plunging DVD and CD sales, which forced bosses to call in the administrators for the second time in six years.
It was at this point that Putman seized his chance and acquired HMV for £883,000, saving 100 stores and around 1,600 jobs – seeing off competition from Sports Direct tycoon Mike Ashley in the process.
He quickly set about re-focusing HMV on vinyl and pop culture merchandise, such as T-shirts and collectible figures and, after a downturn during the pandemic, HMV returned to profit in 2022 as sales almost doubled, rising from £90m to £150m.
HMV’s new Oxford Street store will stock around 8,000 vinyl albums, 12,000 CDs and more than 4,000 franchise products - Heathcliff O'Malley
“Pre-bankruptcy, everyone could see that vinyl was growing every year, and that HMV should dominate it,” says Putman. “But at the time, they weren’t dominating. If you look at HMV today, HMV dominates vinyl.”
The new Oxford Street store will stock around 8,000 vinyl albums, 12,000 CDs and more than 4,000 products from franchises such as Pokémon, Star Wars, Marvel and DC, as well as 750 different T-shirts.
Putman says: “We’ve never had so much access to artists, whether it’s through TikTok or Instagram.
“So, as a fan of an artist, how do you get a further connection? It’s by buying every variant of their album, buying the CD, buying the T-shirt, all those things go into it.”
Streaming services such as Spotify have changed the way people consume music, but this has not been the death knell for retailers such as HMV.
“When you had to download the music, and you were paying $1 per song, that’s where it started to get really tough,” he says. “But streaming is cheaper than downloading. You pay your monthly premium and listen to as much as you want. In a lot of cases, it’s freed up money for people to spend on other things.”
Surprisingly, CD sales are also growing after many years of decline. “It’s the craziest thing,” he says. “People may have thought ‘I can’t afford the vinyl album, but I’ll buy the CD because it’s substantially cheaper’.”
“We’ve never had so many employee incidents with customers, verbally and physically,” he says. “We’ve never had so much theft in the history of the company. And we’ve never had such inaction [from police].”
This has forced HMV to invest in extra cameras and security, as well as training for staff on how to handle shoplifting.
Putman says theft is costing HMV “millions and millions” of pounds, but noted that crime at his shops is not being fuelled by the cost of living crisis.
“If I had to feed my kids, and I couldn’t feed them, there’s not much I wouldn’t do,” he says. “But you’re not seeing that. You’re not coming into HMV to steal vinyl because you can’t feed your kid.”
“I think people were surprised that we could turn it around and make it profitable,” he says. “We weren’t.”
Even so, attempts to expand further by rescuing failed discounter Wilko in the summer were scuppered, effectively pushing more than 200 stores towards closure.
He claims his deal fell apart at the last hurdle because suppliers tried to “hold the business hostage” by demanding inflated fees.
“Excessively greedy giant companies, candidly, don’t give a s---,” he says. “That chain was saveable.”
Ultimately, Wilko was broken up and chunks of the retailer’s estate sold off to rivals such as B&M, Poundland and The Range, which is in the process of reopening a handful of stores under the Wilko brand.
It marked a “painful”, albeit rare defeat for Putman on Britain’s high streets, and while he admits it was “one that got away”, he has no regrets.
“We 100pc had a deal,” he says. “We could have saved it and we would have saved 10,000 jobs.”
