42 2GM Thursday April 28 2022 | the times
Business
The easing of travel restrictions has
helped to push WH Smith back into the
black after two years of pandemic-
related disruption.
The stationery chain posted a head-
line pre-tax profit of £14 million for the
six months to the end of February com-
A judge has rejected Elon Musk’s bid to
end an agreement with regulators
under which lawyers are required to
screen his tweets about Tesla.
The world’s richest man, who is set
to assume control of Twitter after
the social media group accepted his
$44 billion takeover offer this week, was
accused of complaining now that his
electric carmaker has become “all but
invincible”, the judge said.
Musk has been escalating his attacks
on the Securities and Exchange Com-
mission and this month referred to the
regulator as “those bastards”.
Under a 2018 settlement with the
commission, Musk, 50, had agreed to
oversight of his posts about Tesla.
The regulator had charged the bil-
lionaire with alleged securities fraud
after he tweeted that he had securedfunding to potentially take his automo-
tive group private.
Musk’s lawyers had sought to termi-
nate a consent decree resolving the
charges, claiming the regulator’s pur-
suit of the Tesla boss “crossed the line
into harassment” and impeded his con-
stitutional right to free speech.
However, Lewis Liman, a US district
judge in Manhattan, rejected the argu-
ment. He said: “Musk cannot now seek
to retract the agreement he knowingly
and willingly entered by simply be-
moaning that he felt like he had to agree
to it at the time but now once the spec-
ter of the litigation is a distant memory
and his company has become, in his es-
timation, all but invincible wishes that
he had not.”
Shares in Tesla have surged in recent
years amid a global shift away from pet-
rol and diesel to electric vehicles. They
rose by $5.09, or 0.6 per cent, to close at
$881.51 in New York last night.Musk loses court bid to end
screening of his Tesla tweets
Callum Jones
US Business correspondentWH Smith back in black
as travel restrictions ease
Ashley Armstrong Retail Editor pared with a £19 million loss a year
earlier and consensus forecast of
£12.5 million.
Statutory pre-tax profit came in at
£18 million, against a £38 million loss a
year ago, on the back of sales rising by
45 per cent to £608 million.
Carl Cowling, 48, the chief executive,
said the business had delivered a “good
performance with a strong rebound in
profitability. We have seen a recovery
across all of our travel markets despite
the impact of the Omicron variant in
the second quarter and we are in a
strong position to capture growth as the
recovery continues.”
The retailer is hiring for 800 new jobs
in the UK as it opens more travel andhospital shops, almost two years after
putting 1,500 jobs at risk when the pan-
demic caused a dramatic drop in the
number of shoppers visiting its stores.
WH Smith, which traces its roots
back to 1792, has 560 travel shops in the
UK and a further 247 abroad. It has 558
high street shops and employs 14,000
staff.
During the half year, its travel divi-
sion made a £10 million trading profit
versus a £28 million loss last year while
profit at its high street shops was
£26 million, up from £24 million last
year. Despite the improvement in
trading, shares in WH Smith fell by
56½p, or 3.7 per cent, to close at £14.55.
Before the pandemic, the retailer
made two thirds of its profits from its
travel division and had bought two
businesses in the United States, MRG
and InMotion, to boost its growth.
However, the business was hit hard by
travel restrictions and lockdowns,
which closed its airport shops and re-
duced footfall to its railway stores. Its
US travel stores have since recovered
faster than WH Smith’s other inter-
national airport shops as domestic US
travel has rebounded faster. The busi-
ness said that it expected to reopen its
remaining 46 hibernated travel shops
in the UK this summer.
It noted that as restrictions had eased
passenger numbers had increased, fu-
elling a recovery of its travel business.
In the eight weeks to April 23 WH
Smith’s travel revenue was 114 per cent
of 2019, ahead of pre-pandemic levels,
helped by an Easter holiday boost.
Cowling said that the upbeat recent
trading demonstrated pent-up demand
while average transaction value was
higher as WH Smith was selling more
health and beauty products, such as
mini deodorants, sun cream and hair-
spray, alongside magazines and bottles
of water. “We want to be a one-stop for
travel essentials”, he added.
The WH Smith boss admitted that
rising costs for energy, shipping and
wages meant that it would increase
prices “on some products”, particularly
food and drinks. WH Smith is often
criticised for the higher price of its
chocolate bars and refreshments at
travel shops.T
ed Baker has received “a
number” of takeover
proposals, three weeks
after the company
formally put itself up for
sale (Ashley Armstrong writes).
The fashion brand said that itsTed Baker looks
for the best fit
among queue of
takeover suitors