{"id":667967,"date":"2026-07-01T13:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T13:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/667967\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T13:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T13:08:11","slug":"store-closures-tg-jones-formerly-wh-smith-to-shut-150-shops-as-restructuring-plan-approved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/667967\/","title":{"rendered":"Store closures: TG Jones, formerly WH Smith, to shut 150 shops as restructuring plan approved"},"content":{"rendered":"

A major UK high street retailer is set to close more than 100 stores after a restructuring plan to save the business from insolvency has been approved by a London court.<\/p>\n

TG Jones has been given the green light to overhaul its business model after the stationery retailer’s lawyer told a judge it was facing an \u00a38million shortfall if the restructuring proposal was not approved.<\/p>\n

As part of the confirmed plans, there will be an extra \u00a315million loan from the company\u2019s owners Modella Capital, as well as a top of \u00a310million loaned in April, and reduced landlord rent rates.<\/p>\n

Currently, there are an estimated 450 TG Jones stores with 4,700 staff, primarily based in the UK. The retailer was previously known as WH Smith.<\/p>\n

\"TG<\/p>\n

A major retailer is closing more than 100 stores in a blow to UK high streets <\/p>\n

| GETTY<\/p>\n

Tom Smith KC from TG Jones confirmed the “working assumption” is close to 150 of shutdown as a result of these plans.<\/p>\n

During a briefing hearing earlier this week, Mr Justice Hildyard said: “I am persuaded that it is the jurisdiction of the court to sanction both plans, and I decide to do so. I did not find this to be an easy matter.”<\/p>\n

Last year, the high street staple saw its name changed from WH Smith to TG Jones after being purchased by Modella.<\/p>\n

Notably, WH Smith still exists in travel locations across the UK, including airports and train stations.<\/p>\n

\"WHSmith\"\/TG Jones was formerly known as WHSmith | GETTY\"StoreThe high street has been hit with store closures in recent months. | PA<\/p>\n

Mr Smith noted that the business has experienced a “long-term sales decline”, due to multiple factors changing the British economy.<\/p>\n

These include inflation, the rise in online shopping, reduced consumer spending, higher taxes and a spike in labour costs.<\/p>\n

The representative for the beleaguered retailer admitted that the rebranding from WH Smith has also damaged sales.<\/p>\n

WH Smith was founded by Henry Walton Smith and his wife Anna in 1792 in Little Grosvenor Street in Mayfair as a news vendor business.<\/p>\n

Following their deaths, the company was taken over by their youngest son, William Henry Smith in 1812, and the business continued to grow throughout the following century.<\/p>\n

The last of the Smith family departed from WH Smith’s board with the business opting to split its portfolio of travel and high street stores; the latter being sold to Modella.<\/p>\n

As part of their written summary of the proposal, Justice Hildyard described the restructuring as being “complex” and \u201cfar-reaching”.<\/p>\n

He added: “I have had to stand back, and ultimately subjectively assess, whether the plans have a realistic prospect of achieving their purpose, or whether in reality they are flawed, or more generally, whether the writing was on the wall for retail operations of this kind.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A major UK high street retailer is set to close more than 100 stores after a restructuring plan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":667968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,1294,59,2222,1125,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-667967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-gb","tag-money","tag-store-closures","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}