WHSmith
British retailer / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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WH Smith PLC, trading as WHSmith (also written WH Smith, and known colloquially as Smith's and formerly as W. H. Smith & Son), is a British retailer, with headquarters in Swindon, England, which operates a chain of high street, railway station, airport, port, hospital and motorway service station shops selling books, stationery, magazines, newspapers, entertainment products and confectionery.
Formerly | |
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Company type | Public |
Industry | Retail |
Founded | 1792; 232 years ago (1792) in London, England |
Headquarters | Swindon, England |
Number of locations | 525 (High Street) 580 (UK Travel) 600 (International Travel)[lower-alpha 1][2] |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Henry Staunton (Chairman) Carl Cowling (CEO) |
Brands |
|
Revenue | £1,793 million (2023)[2] |
£182 million (2023)[2] | |
£88 million (2023)[2] | |
Number of employees | 14,177 (2023)[2] |
Website | Consumer Corporate |
Footnotes / references [4][5] |
The company was formed by Henry Walton Smith and his wife Anna in 1792 as a news vendor in London. It remained under the ownership of the Smith family for many years and saw large-scale expansion during the 1970s as the company began to diversify into other markets. Following a rejected private equity takeover in 2004, the company began to focus on its core retail business. It was responsible for the creation of the ISBN book identifier.[6]
WHSmith is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.