page_title: Virgin Megastores
section_title: United States
hierarchical_section_title: Virgin Megastores / Operations / North America / United States
context_page_description: Virgin Megastores is an international entertainment retailing chain, founded in early 1976 by Richard Branson as a record shop on London's Oxford Street.
  In 1979 the company opened their first Megastore at the end of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. The company expanded to hundreds of stores worldwide in the 1990s, but has lost a large number of stores in recent years, largely with the sale and eventual closing of the UK, US, Irish, Canadian, Australian, Italian, Spanish, French, Greek and Japanese stores. By 2015, current operations are exclusively in the Middle East and in North Africa, consisting of approximately 40 stores.
context_section_description: In 1992, the Virgin Group and Blockbuster entered into a joint venture to set up the first Virgin Megastore on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, which was closed in 2008. The US Megastore business was launched in 1992 by Richard Branson and Ian Duffell, CEO of Virgin Entertainment Group. At its peak, there were 23 Megastores in the U.S. which generated $310 million annually. The U.S. stores were purchased by Related Companies and Vornado Realty Trust in 2007 for the purpose of closing the stores and to break the long term long rental leases.
caption: Virgin Megastore in San Francisco (2004)
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