Reopening (2007)
On 31 July 2007, it was announced that HMV would take control of the Fopp brand and its stores in Cambridge, Edinburgh Rose Street (but not Cockburn Street), Glasgow, London Covent Garden, Manchester and Nottingham. On 12 February 2008, Bristol Evening Post reported that a further store would open in Bristol (in a former HMV-owned Waterstones store), a city in which three Fopp stores had traded prior to summer 2007.
On 24 August 2007, the Glasgow Union Street and Edinburgh stores reopened. The Cambridge store reopened on 25 August 2007, and the Manchester store was relaunched on the 27th. After a statement from HMV stating that they were unable to open the Covent Garden (London) branch, they finally gained the landlord's consent to take over the lease and the store reopened on 5 October 2007. Only around 10% of the original 700 employees kept their jobs.
In 2009 the HMV store in Exeter, Devon was rebranded as a new Fopp Store while HMV moved to a new building in the redeveloped Princesshay Shopping Centre. Also in August 2010, HMV opened a new Fopp store on the ground floor of the Waterstone's store (Formally part of the HMV Group) in Gower Street, London. On 30 January 2011, HMV closed the Fopp Store in Exeter due to poor sales in the recent re-form of HMV. It is the first Fopp Store to close under the HMV banner.
Nine stores are now trading with the Fopp name under HMV ownership.
Read more about this topic: Fopp (retailer)