WH Smith PLC (SMWH) Q4 2024 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning, everyone. I'm Kyle Cowling, Group CEO, and I'm here with Robert Moorhead, our Group CFO and COO. And I'm also delighted to introduce Max Izzard in the front row, who will shortly be taking over from Robert. I'm sure many of you are aware that this will be Robert's last update with us ahead of his retirement. So before we go any further, I'd like to personally thank Robert for the outstanding contribution he has made to the Group over his 20 years service. That's it though, Robert. As usual, we will start by giving you an update on our performance for the 12 months ending the 31st of August, 2024. And we'll also run through the highlights of the year for the group. In a moment, I'll hand over to Robert, but let's start with an overview and turning to slide three. We have a clear strategy and ambition to be the leading global travel retailer. During the year, we have delivered a strong performance with group profits up 16% to £166 million and group revenue up 7%. And I'm particularly pleased with our performance in Travel UK, our largest division, which grew its profits by 20%. And we continue to innovate and grow this business. We have also seen some improvements in our North American business, and we're delighted with the new airport wins that we've announced today. This includes new business at Washington, Denver, and Dallas, and we are the preferred bidder for two major US airports, totaling a further 15 stores. So some significant wins in the US, and I'll come onto these later in the presentation. During the year, we have also successfully opened over 100 new travel stores across all three divisions, and we now have a new store pipeline of over 90 stores, one and due to open over the next three years. We are benefiting from growing passenger numbers ...