Who owns HMV?

A Canadian businessman called Doug Putman owns the HMV shops. He bought the chain out of administration in February 2019, through a British company named Sunrise Records and Entertainment Limited.

The name is another matter. On the UK trade mark register, HMV, His Master's Voice and Nipper the dog are registered to a company owned by Hilco Capital, the firm that owned HMV before him.

So the answer has two parts, and most accounts give only the first.

What does the register show?

HMV is not a company. Its own website says that The HMV Shop, HMV and Fopp in the United Kingdom are trading names of Sunrise Records and Entertainment Limited, company number 11805729, registered at Mermaid House, Puddle Dock, in London. That company was incorporated on 4 February 2019, the day before the sale was announced.

It has 500 shares. The confirmation statement of 30 June 2025 lists one holder for all of them, DKB Group Holdings Limited, company 11914017, and the statement of 30 June 2026 reported no changes. DKB Group Holdings is a holding company at the same address. It was incorporated in March 2019 as Everest Toys and Games Limited, became DKB Group Trading Limited in 2021 and took its present name in December 2024.

Its register of persons with significant control has one entry: Douglas Robert Putman, a Canadian living in Canada, with 75% or more of the shares and of the votes.

The accounts add a step the register leaves out. DKB's group accounts say its immediate parent is a company incorporated in Canada, with its registered office at 1430 Cormorant Road in Ancaster, Ontario, and that "the ultimate controlling party is Mr D R Putman". HMV's own accounts describe that Canadian parent as "owned and run by the Putman family". Both sets of accounts call it "Ontario Inc" and nothing more, which is not a full company name, so we cannot say which Ontario company it is.

Until November 2021 Mr Putman was registered as controlling the HMV company directly. On 18 November 2021 the holding company took his place on that register. The person at the top did not change.

Who owns the HMV name?

Not the company that runs the shops, according to the trade mark register.

On 2 October 2026 the Intellectual Property Office listed 57 UK trade marks under one owner, Mermaid (Brands) Limited. They include HMV as a word, first filed in 1955, His Master's Voice in versions going back to 1910, a picture mark filed in December 1900, the word Nipper, and Fopp.

Mermaid (Brands) Limited, company 09619888, was called HMV (Brands) Limited until 16 April 2019, ten weeks after the shops were sold. Its registered office is 84 Grosvenor Street in London. Its one share is held by Hilco Capital Limited, and its accounts say its principal activity is "the holding of the intellectual property relating to the trademarks of HMV". One of its two directors is Paul McGowan, who was HMV's executive chairman when Hilco owned it.

So under Hilco the shops and the brand sat in different companies, and in 2019 only the shops were sold.

What the filings do not show is the terms on which HMV uses its own name today. Mermaid (Brands) reported turnover of £3.6 million in 2022 and under £50,000 in 2023. HMV's accounts for the year to May 2025 record £2.5 million of licence fees, paid to companies with the same ultimate parent as HMV, not to Hilco. Something about the arrangement changed around the start of 2023. The filings do not say what, and the trade mark register still names the Hilco company as owner.

How did a Canadian record shop owner come to own HMV?

HMV has been through administration twice.

The first time was in January 2013. That April Hilco, a firm that specialises in retailers in trouble, bought 132 HMV shops and nine Fopp shops from the administrators, in a deal the BBC reported as worth about £50 million.

The second was on 28 December 2018, when Hilco's company, HMV Retail Limited, called in KPMG. It had 125 shops and about 2,200 staff.

On 5 February 2019 the administrators said Sunrise Records had bought the business, ahead of rival bidders who included Mike Ashley of Sports Direct. It took on 100 shops and 1,487 staff. The other 27 shops closed, with 455 redundancies. Among them was 363 Oxford Street in London, where the first HMV shop had opened in 1921.

The old company was renamed H Retail Realisations Limited. Its administration ended in January 2023 and it was dissolved that April.

HMV went back to 363 Oxford Street on 24 November 2023.

Who is Doug Putman?

He was 34 when he bought HMV. The BBC reported at the time that he had bought Sunrise Records, a small Canadian chain, in 2014, and that in 2017 he took over the shops of HMV's failed Canadian business, which gave Sunrise about 80 branches. His family ran Everest Toys, a toy distributor in Ontario.

His company, Putman Investments, is based in Ancaster, Ontario. Canada's public broadcaster, CBC, lists what else it is behind: Sunrise Records, FYE, Ricki's, Cleo, Northern Reflections and Toys "R" Us Canada, which it bought in 2021.

Not all of that has gone well. Toys "R" Us Canada filed for creditor protection on 3 February 2026, having closed 53 shops in two years, and CBC reported that Everest Toys had been forced into receivership the year before. Those are Canadian businesses. HMV's UK company is a separate one, and its latest accounts show a profit.

How is it doing?

The latest accounts cover the year to 30 May 2025 and were filed in February 2026. Turnover was £202.9 million, up from £189.6 million. Operating profit was £5.7 million and profit after tax £4.0 million. The company ran 119 shops in the UK at the year end, two fewer than a year before, and employed 1,570 people on average, 1,415 of them in the shops.

It keeps almost none of what it makes. The whole of the year's profit, £3,995,000, was paid out as a dividend. The same happened to the £3,916,000 it made the year before, and the company ended both years with net assets of £1,000. In the year to May 2025 it also paid £5.4 million in licence and management fees to other companies under the same ultimate parent.

Nearly all of its sales are in the UK: £201.6 million of the £202.9 million.

Who runs it?

The company has three directors, all appointed on the day it was formed: Doug Putman, Jonathan Busher and Anthony Norton. Mr Putman signed the latest accounts. The managing director of HMV and Fopp is Phil Halliday.

Is HMV British?

It was founded in London, and its shops are run by a British company with its head office here. It is owned from Canada.

The same owner has HMV shops in Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands. HMV's website names a separate company for each: Sunrise Records and Entertainment Ireland Limited in Dublin, where a shop opened on Henry Street in June 2023, and Sunrise Records and Entertainment Belgium BV in Antwerp, which also has a Dutch branch.

Is HMV a franchise?

No. The accounts say the company operated the 119 shops itself.

Is HMV independent?

Not in the sense we use. Our verified independent badge marks a locally and privately owned business, not a branch of a chain. HMV is a chain of more than a hundred shops, owned from Ontario, trading under a name that a third company holds. It is one of the national chains that Highstreett's search leaves out.

The useful label is national chain, privately owned from Canada.

Fopp, which looks like the independent alternative, is the same company: see who owns Fopp. For record shops in Lincoln that are not part of a chain, see our guide to independent record shops in Lincoln.

Questions people ask

Is HMV still owned by Hilco?

The shops are not. They were sold in February 2019. The trade marks are another matter: the register still lists them under Mermaid (Brands) Limited, which Hilco Capital owns.

Did HMV go bust?

Twice, in January 2013 and December 2018. The company that runs it now was formed in 2019, and its accounts show a profit in each of the last two years.

Is HMV on the stock market?

No. The shops belong to a private company with one shareholder, and the register names one man as controlling that shareholder.

Does HMV own Fopp?

The company that trades as HMV also trades as Fopp. They are two names for the shops of one business.

How many HMV shops are there?

The accounts count 119 shops in the UK at 30 May 2025. They do not say how many trade as HMV and how many as Fopp; Fopp's own site lists six.

Last checked 2 October 2026. This article uses the Companies House records, registers of persons with significant control, officer lists and filing histories for Sunrise Records and Entertainment Limited (company 11805729), DKB Group Holdings Limited (11914017), Mermaid (Brands) Limited (09619888) and H Retail Realisations Limited (08380689); Sunrise's confirmation statements of 30 June 2025 and 30 June 2026 and its accounts for the year to 30 May 2025; DKB Group Holdings' group accounts for the year to 31 May 2025; Mermaid (Brands)' confirmation statement of 30 April 2026 and its accounts for the 52 weeks to 30 December 2023; the Intellectual Property Office's trade mark register, searched by owner and read on 2 October 2026; HMV's own company information page and privacy notices; and reporting by the BBC (5 April 2013, 28 December 2018 and 5 February 2019), MyLondon (23 November 2023), BreakingNews.ie (June 2023), Retail Bulletin (9 February 2026) and CBC (3 February 2026). What is not claimed: which Ontario company is the parent, since the accounts give only "Ontario Inc"; who the members of the Putman family behind it are, or what each holds; the terms on which HMV uses the HMV name, who is paid the licence fees or why Mermaid (Brands)' income fell in 2023; what Sunrise paid for the business in 2019; how HMV has traded since May 2025; and anything about the finances of Mr Putman's Canadian businesses beyond what CBC reported. If you spot something that needs correcting, email Highstreett and we will review it.