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WH Smith PLC on Thursday said revenue and profit both increased in its latest financial year as its Travel business continues to grow, signalling its confidence with an increased dividend. The London-based retailer, which operates on UK high streets and travel locations like airports and train stations globally, said headline pretax profit for the year ended August 31 surged 96% to £143 million from £73 million. Group pretax profit increased to £110 million from £63 million. Group revenue rose 28% to £1.79 billion from £1.40 million, with total Travel revenue up 43% to £1.32 billion from £927 million. Travel UK revenue increased 36% to £709 million and North America revenue increased 32% to £380 million. Rest of the World revenue soared 99% to £235 million. ‘This has been another year of significant progress for the group,’ commented Chief Executive Carl Cowling. ‘Our global travel business is growing in all our key markets. It is highly scalable with multiple medium and long term growth opportunities and we are seeing great results from sharing our expertise and innovation across our different geographies.’ WH Smith signalled its ‘confidence in future prospects’ by increasing its final dividend to 20.8 pence per share, bring the total payout to 28.9p. This is more than double last year’s final dividend of 9.1p, the company’s first payout since suspending dividends in 2020. ‘We have started the new financial year well with total revenue in Travel UK up 13%, North America up 15%, and ROW up 27%,’ said Cowling. ‘With good trading and very positive prospects, despite the uncertainty in the economic environment, we are confident in the group’s outlook for the new financial year.’ WH Smith shares were up 2.1% at 1,214.00p on Thursday morning in London. Copyright 2023 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
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