LONDON - Speculation that British retailer W. H. Smith will buy Whitcoulls is growing, with reports that executives from the two companies met late last year.
Whitcoulls' parent company Blue Star is looking to sell it, to focus on core business.
Blue Star's parent company, US Office Products, decided in May to
put on the market its non-core transtasman book and stationery business, Blue Star Consumer Retailing. A spokesman said in October the process would be put on the backburner over Christmas, and completed by the end of March.
W. H. Smith Retail has more than 1200 stores worldwide. It employs 27,500 people in 11 countries and is the No 1 British book, magazine and home stationery retailer.
Its consumer publishing business, Hodder Headline, is the most profitable publisher in Britain, and W. H. Smith News is the market leader in news and magazine distribution, supplying more than 22,000 retail customers daily.
W. H. Smith is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is part of the FTSE 250 index. Its principal markets are in Britain, North America, Asia and Europe.
Buying Whitcoulls would add 63 shops to its portfolio and would fit in well with chief executive Richard Handover's strategy of buying and building overseas businesses.
In April, it bought the Benjamin Company, a chain of United States airport bookstores, for £12 million ($40.8 million) from entrepreneur Robert Creuz, taking to more than 500 its shops in the US.
A month earlier, W. H. Smith bought Hazelwoods, which runs bookshops in 70 southwest United States hotels. The company introduced online shopping kiosks in its British stores.
- NZPA
