BREAKING: 'Secret' talks to sell off WHSmith
By Simon Hacker | 27th January 2025
Speculation was rife this morning that renowned British outlet WH Smith could imminently vanish from the high street after Swindon-headquartered parent company, WH Smith Holdings Ltd, was established to be in talks to sell off its legacy retail business.
With bankers at Greenhill appointed to the task and a deal expected to be forthcoming in a few months' time, the move's revelation has created uncertainty over 5,000 staff, with around around 500 stores and the partnership with Toys "R" Us being in the balance at the 232-year-old firm.

In September last year, Punchline-Gloucester.com reported that WH Smith was set to open 37 new Toys R Us stores in the UK before Christmas, its Cheltenham High Street outlet being one of the first of 39 such stores opened in 2023.
Across Gloucestershire, there are WH Smith outlets on Gloucester's Eastgate Street and on King's Street in Stroud, while a brace of embedded outlets can also be found at Michaelwood Services (north and southbound) on the M5 – the emerging scenario being that both Stroud and Gloucester would say goodbye to this high-street presence, but the M5 option would remain.
On Saturday, and further to a leak to the press, a statement from the firm, which reported a flat profit of £32m for its high street division last year, said it was "exploring potential options for this profitable and cash-generative part of the group, including a possible sale". It is understood that the more profitable element of the business, in travel retail and including airports, ports, hospitals and motorway locations, would be retained.

Any such move resonates with growing certainty that high-street trade faces ever tougher challenges from the rise of online retailing (whereas those areas of sales which WH SMiths appears to be resolved to retain pertain to consumers buying in circumstances where they are a "captive audience").
WH Smith's books show that in terms of where its profits lie, 85% come from its travel business, while 75% of revenue is also from the same activity at airports, train and service stations. WH Smith is also seeing healthy business at hospitals, where it has 145 outlets - and has been eyeing a potential 200 more.
WH Smith Holdings is listed in the FTSE250 as SMWH and its share price dipped today but remained significantly above the most notable low of May 2024.
Meanwhile several publishers are wary of the imact of any sale. The website Downthetubes, which reports on business in comic publishing, reacted: "Publishers such as Time Bomb Comics, which prides itself on its aim to bring comics back to the high street, are among those publishers most likely to be impacted if a buyer cannot be found. DC Thomson's Commando might also be impacted, as could VIZ."
Additionally, the website reported that corner and convenience shops are already decreasing shelf space for comics and magazines in the quest for higher profit margins from grocery items.

A statement from WH Smith said: "Over the past decade, WH Smith has become a focused global travel retailer. The Group's Travel business has over 1,200 stores across 32 countries, and three-quarters of the Group's revenue and 85% of its trading profit comes from the Travel business. There can be no certainty that any agreement will be reached, and further updates will be provided as and when appropriate."
● Founded by news vendor Henry Walton Smith and his wife Anna in 1792, the business remained family-run for generations, with the last Smith leaving the board in 1996. The 1970s saw large-scale expansion and diversification into other markets for WH Smith and, following a rejected private equity takeover in 2004, the company began to focus on its core retail activity. Achievements include the creation of the ISBN book identifier, which is now established as the global publishing ID system.
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