HMV shares slump after a summer to forget

The scale of the mountain the new chief executive of HMV has to climb to return the beleaguered entertainment group to profitability was laid bare yesterday when it posted another set of tumbling revenues and its shares slumped.

Trevor Moore, former boss of the camera retailer Jessops who took the helm this month, blamed a "very quiet new release schedule" in music, DVD and games markets for a summer it will wish to forget. Like-for-like retail sales at HMV fell by 11.6 per cent over the 20 weeks to 15 September, although this was "broadly unchanged" on its previous trading update.

HMV, which has 243 shops in the UK and Ireland, suffered a loss of £16.2m for the year to April. The company has predicted a profit of £10m this financial year, but analysts remain sceptical about whether it can achieve such a turnaround. HMV shares fell by 0.27p, or 8.85 per cent, to a lowly 2.78p yesterday.