WHSmith has confirmed that it is looking to sell its High Street stores to complete its strategic shift to being a global travel retailer.<\/p>\n
The group generates \u00a3452m sales from its UK high street stores, around one-quarter of its \u00a31.9bn annual revenue.<\/p>\n
It has 500 stores as well as online businesses under the company brand, funkypigeon.com and cultpens.com.<\/p>\n
However its North American travel business on its own is a comparable size to its UK high street operations, with \u00a3400m sales and has previously been described by the group as having “significant potential for growth”.<\/p>\n
In a statement to the stock market this morning, the company said: “WHSmith confirms that it is exploring potential strategic options for this profitable and cash generative part of the group, including a possible sale.<\/p>\n
“Over the past decade, WHSmith 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.”<\/p>\n
It acknowledged “there can be no certainty that any agreement will be reached”.<\/p>\n
Investment bank Greenhill is leading on the sale.<\/p>\n
Swindon-headquartered WHSmith opened its store in London in 1792 and its first travel store at Euston station around 50 years later. The group now employs 14,000 people in 32 countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Retailer wants to focus on its global travel business, which is already the dominant part of the group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120781,47995],"coauthors":[81],"class_list":["post-18666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-markets","category-retail","tag-featured-story"],"yoast_head":"\n