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WH Smith is exploring a potential sale of its high street stores in a bid to become a pure-play travel business.
The London-listed group said this morning options for the “profitable and cash-generative” part of the group included a possible sale of the 600 shops.
However, WH Smith cautioned there could be “no certainty that any agreement will be reached, and further updates will be provided as and when appropriate”.
All the details are available in a full story here.
Morning update
Diageo has ruled out a sale of its Guinness brand as speculation mounted that the drinks group may look to cash in on the current stout boom.
“We note the recent media speculation around the Guinness brand and our stake in Moët Hennessy and we can confirm we have no intention to sell either,” the group said in a short statement
“We will next update the market with interim results on 4 February 2025 and we look forward to hosting our Guinness investor and analyst day on 19-20 May 2025.”
A full story appeared on The Grocer yesterday. See here for all the details.
UK FTSE retailers issued 20 profit warnings in 2024, marking a slight improvement from the previous year, which saw 24 warnings, according to EY-Parthenon’s latest Profit Warnings report.
In the fourth quarter of 2024, FTSE retailers issued seven profit warnings, a significant increase from the one warning issued in Q3.
Silvia Rindone, EY partner and UK&I retail lead, said: “Profit warnings in the retail sector remained prevalent in 2024. Whilst festive trading reports were broadly positive, they highlight that demand is only part of the story.”
This week in the City
There is plenty scheduled on the markets this week, but all eyes will be on the trading update from WH Smith on Wednesday.
Tomorrow brings the latest updates from Irn-Bru owner AG Barr, Upper Crust operator SSP Group and Pets at Home, with statements covering Q4, Q1 and Q3 respectively. The latest BRC shop price index is also out in the morning.
LVMH will also report quarterly results in Europe tomorrow and Archer Daniels Midland puts out figures over in the US.
Wednesday will see Morrisons publish results for the fourth quarter running to the end of October.
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