Member Article

Soaring coffee sales give Whitbread wings

The continued strengthening of Costa Coffee and the performance of its Premier Inn hotels business has boosted Whitbread’s revenues by 13% in the year to the end of February.

The food and hospitality group said underlying profit before tax was up 16.5%, driven by a 20% increase in total sales across the Costa Group.

Total sales at the Premier Inn brand were up 13.4% and Whitbread said it intends to future focus efforts on the London hotel market - increasing its number of beds in the capital from 8,729 to c.20,000 by 2018.

A “rejuvination” of the firm’s Brewers Fayre and Beefeater restaurants was also promised, including development of food and branding.

Andy Harrison, chief executive, said: “Whitbread has delivered another year of strong double digit growth, with total sales up 13.0%, underlying pre tax profits up 16.5% and EPS up 20.1%. This, combined with our good cash flow, has led the Board to recommend a full year dividend increase of 19.9%.

“This extends our track record of double digit growth, with sales growing by 11.4% over the last five years and EPS and dividends per share growing by 14.7% and 13.5% respectively.

“This success is built on our two strong brands Premier Inn, the UK’s favourite hotel chain and Costa, the UK’s favourite coffee shop and our 43,000 team members who work so hard to deliver a consistently good customer experience.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .