MANAGERS at Irish video chain Xtra-vision have been sent to Britain, Denmark and Italy to oversee operations at the beleaguered Blockbuster chain on behalf of its American parent.

The team, headed by Martin Higgins and his chief operations officer Gerry Butler, will oversee 1,250 DVD and video shops.

Higgins and Butler, who head up 150 stores in the republic and 48 in Northern Ireland, are now charged with injecting life into Blockbuster UK after the recent exit of its managing director Alex Sparks. They have also been appointed to oversee existing management in Italy and Denmark.

While Xtra-vision and the wider European business have been surrounded by perennial rumours that Blockbuster is looking to sell off its international division, Butler said that the group has no such plans.

Recently filed accounts show that Xtra-vision’s outlets in the republic posted a 13% increase in sales last year to almost €123m, though operating profit only edged up less than 3% to €9.6m. The company is now sitting on retained earnings of more than €34m.

In addition to its traditional market of renting and selling movies, in recent years Xtra-vision has branched out into other areas of the consumer electronics market.

It now sells computer games consoles and recently announced a deal with 3 Ireland to sell the mobile phone operator’s handsets in its stores. It already had deals in place with 02, Vodafone and Meteor, the other three mobile operators in the Irish market.

“We are also considering ways of offering a digital proposition for customers to download movies,” said Butler.