The Day the Music Died

Best Buy Co. Inc. (Eden Prairie, Minn.) has announced it wants to sell its Musicland business, saying the music products retailing subsidiary has sustained declines in CD sales and hasn't performed as well as expected in selling consumer electronics.

“We are working diligently to complete a sale of Musicland,” ceo Brad Anderson said in a news release, adding that the retailer has hired an investment banking firm to help it with the sale.

Anderson said Connie Fuhrman, executive vp of The Musicland Group Inc. (Minnetonka, Minn.), was promoted to president of the subsidiary to lead it during the transition. The company said it expects to report on Musicland's status in June.

Best Buy paid nearly $700 million for Musicland two years ago. The greatest decline in Musicland's same-store sales was at its 736 Sam Goody CD stores. The Musicland division also includes 383 Suncoast video stores and 76 Media Play outlets. Musicland has 1200 stores nationwide.

In January, Best Buy announced the closing of about 110 Sam Goody and Suncoast stores, citing a decline in sales of prerecorded music and the slowdown in mall traffic.