MORE jobs are at risk across the News Shopper patch as high street entertainment superstore HMV has announced it has called in the administrators.

Stores in Bromley High Street, at the Nugent Shopping Park in Orpington, in The Broadway Shopping Centre in Bexleyheath and at Bluewater are among the 238 shops nationwide under threat.

The firm, which employs more than 4,000 people in the UK and Ireland, has announced this morning that it has stopped issuing or accepting gift cards.

Following discussions among the music retailer's directors, the company said it was ceasing trading in ordinary shares immediately - and had appointed accountancy giant Deloitte as the administrator.

In a statement, the company said: “The board regrets to announce it has been unable to reach a position where it feels able to continue to trade outside of insolvency protection, and in the circumstances therefore intends to file notice to appoint administrators to the company and certain of its subsidiaries with immediate effect.

“The directors of the company understand that it is the intention of the administrators, once appointed, to continue to trade whilst they seek a purchaser for the business.”

In the run-up to Christmas HMV's boss Trevor Moore warned the entertainment group was in trouble as he revealed the chain was in talks with banks over its future following worse-than-expected trading over the festive period.

The chief executive said market conditions suggested the group would fail to meet expectations for the year to April, so would not meet the terms of its bank loans.

HMV said like-for-like sales fell 10.2 per cent in the 26 weeks to October 27 last year, as its pre-tax loss narrowed to £36.1 million, compared to £50.1 million the previous year.

Shares tumbled 39 per cent after the dismal results were published, giving the retailer a market value of just £10.1 million.

Mr Moore joined the group from camera chain Jessops, which itself went into administration last week at the cost of 1,370 jobs across its 187 stores.

Stores in Bromley, Bexleyheath and Bluewater all closed their doors for good on Friday (January 11), just hours after an official announcement was made.

Suppliers including Universal Music came to HMV's rescue in January 2011 with a deal which helped the retailer shed some of its huge debt pile.

Its struggle has seen it sell off several parts of its business, including the Waterstones book retailer, to reduce its debt pile, while closing loss-making stores.

HMV also offloaded its Hammersmith Apollo venue for £32 million, which enabled it to thrash out a new deal with lenders.

Back in May last year, when former boss Simon Fox was still in charge, the group said it was looking for pre-tax profits of at least £10 million for the 2012/13 financial year.