// The boss of WHSmith has said the retailer will not be opening any more high street stores in the UK
// Instead the business will focus on airports and train stations
WHSmith bosses have said the retailer won’t be opening any more UK High Street stores.
The high street stalwart will instead focus on UK airports and train stations as well as expanding across US and Europe.
Chief executive Carl Cowling told the BBC: “We’ve got a very healthy High Street business in the UK. But we’ve got no ambitions to grow that.”
Currently, WHSmith has around 550 high-street stores in the UK and is present in all the main cities in England, Wales and Scotland. Cowling said that opening more stores “would just be a duplication”.
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While the retailer does not plan to open more high street stores, it will continue to invest in them, with Cowling referencing its partnership with Toys R Us across UK High Street shops.
In the last few decades, the business has moved into airports, train stations, motorway services and even US-based casino resorts.
Yet, Cowling noted that the rise in interest rates has increased the costs of the company’s investments due to the rise in borrowing costs.
“It’s something we have to think about because we bought two businesses in the US and and of course we have debt in the purchase of those businesses,” he said.
“But our business has come out of the pandemic in a good place. We’re very cash generative, and we haven’t got a ceiling on our investments at the moment.”
WHSmith saw its biggest growth in the US market, capturing about 12% of the retail market in US airports, Cowling told the BBC World Service Marketplace Morning Report. The aim is to increase the result to 20% over the course of the next four years.
Cowling also revealed that the firm plans to spend £120m over the next year to open shops in the US and across Europe: “We’ve got a pipeline of 60 stores to open and we’re constantly winning tenders in airports.”
Back in 2018 and 2019, WHSmith was ranked among the worst high-street retailers by Which?
The shop even received a spoof Twitter account whose sole purpose was to mock the carpets in-store.
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