New HMV Chief Is No High Flyer

New HMV chief exec Trevor Moore has admitted he’s no high flyer in an interview with The Independent.

“The only job I ever wanted to do at school was to be a pilot but the height limit was 6ft 3in. My life was shattered,” the 6-foot-6 Moore told the UK daily.

He also made a somewhat low-key entry to his new role, passing up on the chance to rouse the troops with a rallying message on his first day.

At the end of that, HMV’s corporate website was still listing the recently departed Simon Fox as the company’s chief exec. Fox is now head of Trinity Mirror, the UK’s largest newspaper group and publisher of Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and The People, and the Scottish Sunday Mail and Daily Record.

What Moore does have going for him is his experience at Jessops, the high street camera retailer that – like HMV – has been hit by the rise of digital and a lackluster economy.

Moore ran Jessops for three years following its rescue from administration by HSBC, when the bank did a debt-for-equity swap.

He’s turned the business around and – like Fox at HMV – has improved its relationship with suppliers, which include camera giants such as Nikon and Canon.

Moore inherits a business that last year had an after-tax loss of £80 million ($127 million), closed shops that weren’t making money, and started offloading the £60 million ($95 million) worth of live music interests it acquired in 2010. Its share price has slumped more than 95 percent and now stands at around 3.1 pence.

In April it reported that Q1 year-on-year sales were down 12.2 percent, while business analysts reckon it’s on target to lose a further £16 million ($25.4 million) this year.

Fox says he left HMV in good shape and predicted that this year it will make £10 million ($15.9 million).