HMV to sell Waterstones to Russian investor for £53m to stay in business
Shares in the 90-year-old company, which has issued three profit warnings this year, rose 3% yesterday, after it said it had agreed to sell the 296-store Waterstones business, Britain’s largest bookshop chain, to a vehicle of Alexander Mamut.
Mamut, who has a 6.7% stake in HMV, owns Russia’s biggest mobile phone retailer Euroset, which last month pulled a planned $1.5 billion (€1.06bn) stock market flotation. HMV said the deal is conditional on the approval of shareholders, the pension trustee and pensions regulator, and crucially the consent of its lending banks including a renegotiation of the group’s lending facilities.
