* Comfortable with FY profit forecasts of 81 million pounds
* H1 pretax profit 61 million pounds, down 5 percent
* H1 div 5.4 pence, up 17 percent
* Shares up 1 percent by 0921 GMT
(Adds detail throughout, CEO, analyst comments, shares)
By James Davey
LONDON, April 23 (Reuters) - WH Smith, the British newspaper, books and stationery retailer, underlined its resilience to the economic downturn with a confident outlook on full-year profit and 17 percent hike in its interim dividend.
"Our markets remain challenging, however we have planned accordingly and are confident in the outcome for the full-year," Chief Executive Kate Swann said.
She told reporters she was comfortable with analysts' forecasts of pretax profit of about 81 million pounds ($118 million) for the year to end-August 2009, up from 76 million pounds in the previous year.
Her comments and the dividend increase offset a 5 percent fall in first-half profit, largely due to lower interest income following a 90 million pounds return of cash to shareholders and acquisitions last year.
Shares in WH Smith have increased in value by about 12 percent over the last three months, but have underperformed the FTSE All Share General Retailers Index by about 16 percent.
By 0921 GMT, the stock was up 3.5 pence at 413.5, valuing the business at about 618 million pounds.
"The PER (price earnings ratio) discount to the sector of around 40 percent is unwarranted given the cash generative properties of the company and the consistent profit progress," Investec Securities analysts said in a research note.
WH Smith ended its first half with net cash of 44 million pounds and is paying an interim dividend of 5.4 pence.
The group, which trades from 562 high street stores as well as 464 outlets at airports, train stations, hospitals and motorway service areas across the UK, made a pretax profit of 61 million pounds for the six months to Feb. 28.
This compares with analysts' consensus forecast of about 59.5 million pounds and 64 million pounds in the previous year.
Group sales were flat at 731 million pounds, with like-for-like sales down 5 percent -- high street down 6 percent and travel down 1 percent.
However, the fall in sales was offset by much better gross profit margins, which were up 170 basis points, and 9 million pounds of cost savings in the high street business.
Swann's strategy is based on cutting costs and improving gross margins by focusing on more profitable products, better sourcing and better control of markdowns, rather than driving top line sales.
The mix of products has been re-balanced towards WH Smith's core categories of stationery, books, newspapers and magazines and away from entertainment products -- CDs, DVDs, computer games and consoles.
"In terms of current trading (there's been) no major change from what we reported in the half," Swann said.
WH Smith has a low average transaction value of about 5 pounds in the high street business and 3.50 pounds in travel, so has tended to be less impacted by the economic downturn.
Positive trading updates this week from supermarket giant Tesco, telecoms and retail group Carphone Warehouse, video games retailer Game Group and department store group Debenhams have added to optimism that UK consumer markets are steadying.
"I certainly would agree that it's not getting any worse. I think it's a bit too soon and a bit unclear year-on-year whether we can say anything better than that," Swann said. (Editing by Mike Nesbit and Andrew Macdonald) ($1=.6866 Pound)