It is now 225 years since Henry Walton Smith and his wife, Anna, opened a small news vendor in Little Grosvenor Street, London. By some reckoning WH Smith should not have made it so far. In 2003, when Kate Swann took over as chief executive, it seemed to be heading down the road travelled by other non-specialist retailers such as Woolworths and BHS.
Ms Swann chose to run the high-street branches for cash, expand the travel side and return what cash remained to investors. Fourteen years later, she has left but the policy remains in place. Since 2007 £829 million has been returned as dividends and share buybacks.
Interim figures show like-for-like sales at the high street stores down by 3 per cent in the