WH Smith’s identify will probably be erased throughout excessive streets after the 233-year-old firm offered a part of its enterprise to the proprietor of Hobbycraft.
The £76m deal will see its 480 excessive road shops rebrand as TGJones, below the possession of Modella Capital, which gained the ultimate stage of the public sale course of.
Whereas WH Smith has given up its excessive road enterprise, it can proceed its profitable journey retail arm, with 1,200 shops, primarily based primarily at airports and railway stations, in 32 nations globally.
However its erasure from UK excessive streets marks the tip of an period stretching again to 1792, when the primary WH Smith was opened by Henry Walton Smith and his spouse Anna in Little Grosvenor Avenue, London.
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WH Smith to promote excessive road outlets
Here is a take a look at a few of the different excessive road giants which have disappeared in recent times.
Debenhams
Division retailer chain Debenhams, like WH Smith, was a staple of British excessive streets for hundreds of years, first opening its doorways in 1778.
However its remaining premises closed completely in Might 2021 after the corporate collapsed amid the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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A Debenhams division retailer in Suffolk, pictured in 2016. Pic: iStock
The retailer, which employed 20,000 folks pre-pandemic, was already struggling earlier than the outbreak, as customers moved away from conventional division retailer fashions and moved on-line.
Nevertheless, it couldn’t deal with the enforced closure of web sites throughout lockdown and rapidly went into administration inside weeks of the virus totally hitting the UK.
Debenhams was acquired by vogue retailer Boohoo earlier than the shops closed, and has been reworked right into a profitable online-only operation.
It is so profitable that Boohoo, within the midst of an enormous fall in revenue, has renamed itself Debenham Group.
Its chief govt Dan Finley mentioned {that a} turnaround of Debenhams was now full and the net division retailer’s up to date enterprise mannequin now accounted for almost all of group profitability.
Woolworths
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A Woolworths in central London, 2008. Pic: PA
As soon as one other excessive road elementary, Woolworths – recognized for its choose ‘n’ combine, homeware and every part in between – had greater than 800 shops within the UK at its peak.
The primary retailer opened in November 1909 in Liverpool, by New Yorker Frank Woolworth, who had already established the model within the US.
However virtually precisely 100 years later – 6 January 2009 – its well-known shops closed for good, simply months after the corporate sunk into administration.
Analysts blame its downfall on a poisonous mixture of low money reserves, misplaced credit score insurance coverage and crippling debt – all exacerbated by the 2008 monetary disaster.
The shops had been in style proper till the tip, with the agency’s ultimate annual report exhibiting a slight pre-tax revenue in 2007.
However it was not sufficient to avoid wasting the struggling enterprise, which left 27,000 folks out of labor.
Ted Baker
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The Ted Baker retailer at London Bridge. Pic: PA
Based by Ray Kelvin in Glasgow in 1988, Ted Baker went on to develop into a preferred menswear label throughout the UK and ventured into womenswear, too.
However a torrid interval started for the retailer in 2019 when Mr Kelvin left amid claims of inappropriate behaviour in direction of colleagues.
It was subsequently compelled to difficulty a string of revenue warnings and accounting mishaps, having to handle the COVID-19 pandemic from a place of economic weak spot.
In 2020, it axed a whole lot of jobs and raised £100m to shore up its steadiness sheet.
Ted Baker was delisted from the London inventory market in 2022 after being purchased by Genuine, headed by the entrepreneur Jamie Salter, for about £210m.
However it by no means recovered, finally closing 15 of its UK shops in early 2024, earlier than closing its remaining 31 outlets in August 2024.
Simply earlier than closing all shops, homeowners Genuine struck a cope with United Legwear and Attire Co (ULAC) to function an e-commerce presence for the model in Britain and Europe, so Ted Baker nonetheless has a web-based retailer.
Arcadia manufacturers
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Topshop’s flagship retailer at Oxford Circus, London, in 2020. Pic: PA
The Arcadia Group, led by Sir Philip Inexperienced, employed round 13,000 folks throughout its high-street vogue manufacturers like Topshop, Topman, Burton, Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge.
After practically 20 years, the empire got here crumbling down when Sir Philip was compelled to place the group into administration within the autumn of 2020.
It was picked aside by on-line retailers, with Asos swooping in for giant names like Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridge and HIIT, and Boohoo taking up Burton, Dorothy Perkins and Wallis.
Arcadia’s downfall was probably the most spectacular implosions in latest company historical past, forcing about 500 standalone websites to shut.
Sir Philip purchased the excessive road group in 2002 for £850m, and simply three years later paid what stays one of many largest-ever dividends – £1.2bn – to his spouse and Arcadia’s registered proprietor, Girl Tina Inexperienced.
Arcadia’s collapse got here within the midst of the pandemic, however its downfall occurred after many controversial strikes by Sir Philip.
BHS
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BHS workers carry items that they bought with low cost from the BHS head workplace in Marylebone Highway in 2014. Pic: Nick Ansell/PA
BHS – or British Residence Shops – collapsed into administration in April 2016, main 11,000 staff to lose their jobs.
The model, established in 1928, closed its final 22 shops in October 2016.
Sir Philip Inexperienced additionally owned BHS after shopping for it for £200m in 2000. He offered the enterprise to Dominic Chappell, a serial bankrupt, in 2015 for £1.
Twenty-two thousand pensioners had been hit by a £571m black gap within the collapsed retailer’s pension fund, main MPs to push for Sir Philip to be stripped of his knighthood.
He finally paid £363m to settle the pension schemes, whereas Chappell was jailed for six years in 2020 for failing to pay tax on £2.2m in earnings he obtained after shopping for BHS.
