Richard Branson on Monday sold his Virgin Megastores record shops in Britain and Ireland, shedding the brand that launched his Virgin empire.
The British tycoon said high street music retailing was facing a stiff challenge from supermarket and online sales.
Virgin Group sold Virgin Megastores in Britain and Ireland for an undisclosed sum to a management buy-out team.
The deal creates Britain and Ireland's largest independent entertainment retailer and the 125 stores will now be rebranded as Zavvi after Zavvi Entertainment Group.
"I opened my first Virgin Megastore when I was 16, 30 years ago, so it's a slightly sad day to be selling them today," Branson said. "But I'm selling them to the people who ran the stores so I'm certain they'll be in good hands."
He said Virgin Group had chosen to move away from retailing into licensing music.
"There's no question that with online sales and cheap supermarket prices that music retailing has become a different business than it was 30 years ago when I started," he said.
Branson's Virgin Group includes interests as diverse as airlines, mobile phones, radio stations, trains and cola.
Branson founded Virgin as a mail order record retailer in 1970 and a year later opened the first Virgin record shop in London on Oxford Street, a main shopping thoroughfare.
In 1979, the company moved to its Oxford Street "megastore" that remains its flagship outlet.
Monday's sale represents the latest development in a sector suffering from increased competition and falling sales in the face of rising digital downloads.
"Our most recent investments have also included renewable energy and clean technologies in line with the group's desire to become one of the world leaders in that field along with sustainable transportation and travel," Branson said.
"[Entertainment retailing] is no longer viewed as core to the group's future," he said.
The Eurovision Song Contest has seen a surge in punter interest at the bookmakers, becoming a major betting event, experts said ahead of last night’s giant glamfest in Basel. “Eurovision has quietly become one of the biggest betting events of the year,” said Tomi Huttunen, senior manager of the Online Computer Finland (OCS) betting and casino platform. Betting sites have long been used to gauge which way voters might be leaning ahead of the world’s biggest televised live music event. However, bookmakers highlight a huge increase in engagement in recent years — and this year in particular. “We’ve already passed 2023’s total activity and
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) today announced that his company has selected "Beitou Shilin" in Taipei for its new Taiwan office, called Nvidia Constellation, putting an end to months of speculation. Industry sources have said that the tech giant has been eyeing the Beitou Shilin Science Park as the site of its new overseas headquarters, and speculated that the new headquarters would be built on two plots of land designated as "T17" and "T18," which span 3.89 hectares in the park. "I think it's time for us to reveal one of the largest products we've ever built," Huang said near the
China yesterday announced anti-dumping duties as high as 74.9 percent on imports of polyoxymethylene (POM) copolymers, a type of engineering plastic, from Taiwan, the US, the EU and Japan. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s findings conclude a probe launched in May last year, shortly after the US sharply increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, computer chips and other imports. POM copolymers can partially replace metals such as copper and zinc, and have various applications, including in auto parts, electronics and medical equipment, the Chinese ministry has said. In January, it said initial investigations had determined that dumping was taking place, and implemented preliminary
Intel Corp yesterday reinforced its determination to strengthen its partnerships with Taiwan’s ecosystem partners including original-electronic-manufacturing (OEM) companies such as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電). “Tonight marks a new beginning. We renew our new partnership with Taiwan ecosystem,” Intel new chief executive officer Tan Lip-bu (陳立武) said at a dinner with representatives from the company’s local partners, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the US chip giant’s presence in Taiwan. Tan took the reins at Intel six weeks ago aiming to reform the chipmaker and revive its past glory. This is the first time Tan
RSS