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Sir Richard Branson's Virgin group today revealed that it has sold its chain of record stores to a team of senior management personnel at the firm.

Under the deal the 125 stores which currently operate under the Virgin Megastores brand in the UK and Ireland will all trade under the new name Zavvi.

Announcing the sale of the high-street music business, Sir Richard said the move was part of a withdrawal that his business empire had been making from the entertainment retail sector over the past six years.

Leading music retailers, including HMV, have been struggling to maintain CD sales amid the growing popularity of digital music downloads and competition from supermarket chains.

It is not clear how much the Virgin Megastores business has been sold for, with the firm's managing director Simon Douglas and finance director Steve Peckham having bought the company.

Commenting on the acquisition, Mr Douglas said: "For over 30 years Virgin Megastores has benefited from being part of the Virgin group and from the unstinting support of Sir Richard Branson.

"We are delighted to be given the opportunity to build on that legacy," he added.

Sir Richard, who founded Virgin as a mail order record company in 1970 before opening a store on London's Oxford Street the following year, said that the business had subsequently grown into "the world's largest branded venture capital organisation".

The Virgin empire now includes a range of successful businesses across various sectors, including the Virgin Atlantic airline and Virgin Mobile telecommunications group.

Explaining the reasons for the sale of Virgin's music retail arm, Sir Richard said: "In the last six years we have been withdrawing from entertainment retailing which is no longer viewed as core to the group's future.

"We now choose to franchise our global entertainment retail operations, rather than own them, and this was the last significant Virgin wholly-owned retail business in the world," he added.

"I would like to take this opportunity to wish the retail team all the best with their new venture," Sir Richard stressed.