International Update: WH Smith Considers Sale of U.K. 'High Street' Stores; Previously Banned Books Now Available to Syrians

Bookstore chain WH Smith "is in secret talks to sell its entire high street business in Britain more than 230 years after it opened its first shop in central London," Sky News reported, adding that negotiations have been underway with a number of prospective buyers of the division for several weeks.

The division, which comprises about 500 stores, employing approximately 5,000 people, is currently part of the same group as the company's "faster-growing, more profitable travel retail business, comprising 600 shops in the U.K., about half of its global operation in airports, train stations and hospitals.

WH Smith's high street division recorded flat operating profit of £32 million (about $40 million) last year. The travel business accounts for 75% of the company's revenue, and 85% of profits, due to higher margins. Sky News noted that it is growing particularly quickly in the U.S. market.

Results reported today highlighted the continuing split between WH Smith's two main businesses. In the 21-week period ended January 25, WH Smith reported that travel division sales rose 7% while high street sales dropped 6%, the Bookseller reported.

In a statement, WH Smith confirmed it was "exploring potential strategic options for this profitable and cash generative part of the Group, including a possible sale.... Over the past decade, WH Smith has become a focused global travel retailer. The Group's Travel business has over 1,200 stores across 32 countries... There can be no certainty that any agreement will be reached, and further updates will be provided as and when appropriate."

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Books "recounting torture in Syrian prisons or texts on radical Islamic theology now sit openly in Damascus bookstores, no longer traded in secret after iron-fisted ruler Bashar al-Assad's ouster," AFP (via France 24) reported, adding that several books that were previously banned and only available to Syrians if they were pirated online "now frequently pop up on footpath displays or inside bookshops." Among those titles are The Shell by Syrian author Mustafa Khalifa and My Aunt's House by Iraqi author Ahmed Khairi Alomari. 

Prison literature "was totally forbidden," said bookshop owner Abu Yamen. "Before, people didn't even dare to ask--they knew what awaited them."

In his Damascus bookshop, Abdel Rahman Suruji "displays leather-bound works emblazoned with golden calligraphy of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, a medieval Muslim theologian and important Salafi ideologue, as well as titles by Sayyed Qotb, a theoretician behind the Muslim Brotherhood who inspired its radicalization," AFP wrote.

"All these books were prohibited. We sold them in secret, just to those who we could trust--students we knew or researchers," he recalled, adding that now they are in "high demand."

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The RISE Bookselling project, which the European and International Booksellers Federation launched in 2022 as a three-year initiative supported by the Creative Europe program of the European Commission, has been renewed for four more years. 

"This next chapter allows us to expand the activities that make RISE so special. And most importantly, it ensures that the soul of this project--you, the booksellers--will keep thriving," EIBF noted.

During its first three years, RISE hosted the first and second international conferences specifically tailored for booksellers, with more than 250 booksellers participating in Prague and more than 300 in Lisbon. The program also supported 114 booksellers from all over the world through the RISE Booksellers Exchange Program, and sent a total of 91 booksellers to 16 of the most important trade events, including the Frankfurt Book Fair, the American Booksellers Association's Winter Institute, Rencontres nationales de la librairie, and more.

In addition, six volumes of Industry Insights, RISE's research reports on key topics for the industry, were released, as well as three seasons of the Let's Talk Bookselling podcast. --Robert Gray

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