The British hedge fund run by George Soros has made a £10m stock market bet against retailer WH Smith, adding to short positions equivalent to more than £100m in UK-listed companies.

SFM UK Management has nine publicly declared shorts in British firms, regulatory filings show. The 0.5% short position in WH Smith, opened on 19 November, was equivalent to £10.5m at the close of trading on Thursday.

The short against WH Smith comes after the company bought US airport retailer InMotion for £155m in October, in a return to the States after a hiatus of 15 years.

GLG Partners, another British hedge fund, also built up a 0.5% short position in WH Smith this month following the purchase. The retailer’s shares have risen by 24% since 2016, but are down 17% this year.

SFM UK provides investment management services to Soros Fund Management, the American firm controlled by the billionaire US-based investor who is known for profiting from bets against sterling when the UK left the exchange rate mechanism in 1992. About 40% of the UK fund’s current reported shorts are in British companies, according to analysis by the investment data firm Breakout Point.

Under European regulations, investors must publicly declare when they have a short position of at least 0.5% of a company’s shares. Short sellers borrow shares from their owners and then sell them on, pocketing the difference in price if their belief that shares’ value will fall proves correct.

SFM UK holds shorts in multiple companies exposed to the spending of UK consumers, including Victoria, a flooring manufacturer, and NewRiver, a real estate investment trust that focuses on retail and leisure property.

Allan Lockhart, the chief executive of NewRiver, said his business was in “good shape” and was “invested in the right areas of the market, letting space to growing retailers at affordable rents”, despite being shorted by SFM UK.

SFM UK has also bet against SIG, a building materials supplier, and Kier Group, the struggling construction and outsourcing firm. SFM UK previously shorted Kier’s doomed rival Carillion.

Soros wrote last year that he believed Brexit would lead to a fall in living standards in the UK, forcing consumers to rein in their spending. He has donated to campaigns against the UK leaving the EU. He has also been the target of attacks from rightwing extremists in the US and Hungary, where he was born.

The fund’s two biggest short positions in the UK are a £16.4m position against the carmaker Aston Martin Lagonda and a £30.8m bet against Halma, a FTSE 100 hazard protection equipment manufacturer.

SFM UK’s reported short positions were equivalent to £110.1m on Thursday. SFM UK declined to comment.