Smiths News, the UK's largest newspaper and magazine distributor, is to be renamed and rebranded next month as Connect, reports the London Evening Standard. It distances the company yet further from its historic starting point as WH Smith.

The wholesale distributor was hived off from stationer and retailer WH Smith eight years ago. It has since expanded its activities to include books, plus education and health products.

That diversification under chief executive Mark Cashmore is expected to result in 50% of Smiths' profits being generated outside newspaper and magazine wholesaling by 2016.

The name change is also a recognition of the gradual erosion of print in the digital age. But why Connect?

Cashmore believes the new name reflects the company's role in "connecting suppliers and customers in an efficient, knowledgeable and service oriented way".

WH Smith began life in 1792 when Henry Walton Smith and his wife, Anna, established a news vending business in London. After their deaths, the business was inherited by their youngest son, William Henry Smith, who passed it on to his son, also William Henry. He gave it the name WH Smith & Son in 1846.

The Smith family's control slipped away down the years, with the last family member finally leaving the board in 1996.

Sources: London Evening News/City AM/Wikipedia