Patient: Doug Putman says HMV helps its customers slow down and enjoy life
When Doug Putman rescued the iconic HMV chain in 2019, the odds were stacked against him. The chain was bankrupt and sales of its mainstays, DVDs and CDs, were in freefall.
Thousands of films were available at the press of a button on Amazon and Netflix, and music streaming was king. Many thought the self-proclaimed music lover with the dream of a revival of vinyl had lost the plot.
Four years later, Putman could not seem more relaxed about battling some of the biggest companies in the world.
‘Life is good. Everything is good,’ he says. ‘HMV is something I always thought was just a great brand. I felt like, if it had an owner who loved it and was about the future, it would be successful.’
Since he took control, HMV has shrugged off its seemingly terminal decline. The chain is profitable again and sales are growing.
Anyone who has entered an HMV recently could be forgiven for thinking they’d taken a step back in time. The shops are like a flashback to the 1970s when music was all about racks of wax. The 119-store chain even has a small but growing range of record players – an indication that another generation of vinyl addicts is emerging. ‘Our record player sales have been phenomenal,’ says Putman.
Some 5.5 million traditional LPs were sold in Britain during 2022, the most since 1990. CDs are ‘resilient’ and even cassette tapes are back, which is unbelievable to anyone who has listened in horror as their bedroom hi-fi chewed one up beyond repair.
His explanation? ‘So much of our lives is intangible. It’s online, it’s social media. But it’s still nice to have something tangible – whether that’s a book, a CD, or a vinyl album.
‘I think HMV lends itself so well to saying ‘stop, calm down, let’s slow it down a little bit and just enjoy life’,’ he says.
HMV’s sales bear him out, having risen 67 per cent to £151 million in the year to May 2022 as its stores bounced back after the pandemic. More importantly, it made a £2 million profit.But vinyl alone hasn’t saved HMV. Putman’s secret weapon is a healthy range of pop culture merchandise – Marvel and Star Wars, as well as Nintendo games characters and Japanese anime – cheekily cashing in on films and TV series pushed by the very US streaming giants that have eaten away at the chain’s traditional DVD business.
Brands like Funko Pop! and Youtooz will mean very little to most of us. But the products have brought in a new generation of customers that once shunned HMV as a ‘dad hangout’.
‘Before I bought HMV it was clearly an older demographic. Walk in today, and it’s unbelievable how many ten, 15, 18-year-olds are in the store. I’m telling you, that’s good for us long term.’
The Canadian entrepreneur, who lives in Ontario, says his team is drawing up plans for stores in Europe. He’s also confident a shop on London’s Oxford Street – where HMV once had two giant megastores – will become a reality again soon. It’s a remarkable reversal of fortune, even if the scale of the task made him pause before plunging in at the deep end.
‘Just before I bought HMV, I was scared that it was just too big for us,’ he admits.
‘It’s OK to question yourself when you first look at something. Once you decide, no matter how bad it gets, you fight through it.’
Business is in the blood. He is a scion of the family that owns Putman Investments, which in 2021 took over the bankrupt Toys R Us chain in Canada, with an estimated £830 million sales.
In the early days at HMV, he spent a lot of time in Britain. Now he relies on his team. It’s a blueprint replicated as he buys more businesses – 30 or 40 at the last count.
‘Most of our time is spent trying to find and attract great talent. They basically then become their own boss. Yes, I set up some guard rails. When things aren’t going well, when I don’t like what’s going on, I can be very direct. I speak candidly. It has to be someone who can handle that. But in general I’m someone to bounce ideas off.’ Putman, whose baby daughter arrived six weeks after he acquired HMV, says his life is ‘family-centric’. He has lunch with his 70-year-old dad most days – his ‘best friend and mentor’ – and his sister comes for dinner every Saturday when phones are placed ‘in a basket for four hours’. He reads a lot. ‘I’m always reading something – I think that’s important.’
And he wishes more high-flying business people would get involved in the political process instead of retiring to play golf – ‘it’s one of the saddest things I see’.
His parents bought their first business after remortgaging their house for $50,000. He remembers when the family empire was turning over $3 million in sales. Two decades later, it’s into the billions.
He reflects: ‘I’m a very lucky person. I’m a normal guy. My dad was a steel worker. My mum is a bank teller. I was a ‘C’ student.’
Putman recommends the biography of Warren Buffett, The Snowball, for inspiration. ‘I read it every couple of years.
‘It just goes to show how you can accumulate if you take the time. It’s always a slow start. But things compound quickly. You hear about people making a lot of money. But it probably started with $50,000 or $100,000. Things can grow.
‘I give the same advice to everyone. There is a long runway. You don’t have to do everything in one year. You don’t have to be impatient. Even if you’re 40. My dad didn’t get out of being a steelworker until he was 53. Let it run its course.
‘Start with something small that you think you’re going to be good at. Try to find a great mentor who will save you from a lot of the pitfalls.
‘Then just go for it – what’s the worst that’s going to happen?
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