Whitbread stay focused in murky economic climate

Whitbread PLC announced last week that it achieved an increase of 4.9% in like-for-like sales for the year to 26th February 2009. The hotel and leisure group expressed satisfaction with its results, especially in the context of a difficult economic climate, particularly in autumn.

Premier Inn was a strong performer for the company with a 14% increase in total sales and a 6% improvement in like-for-like sales. Whitbread says that it now has more hotel rooms than any other company and is the first choice for business customers. This year, it aims to open 2,000 new rooms in the UK and overseas. Having opened a Premier Inn in Dubai, it intends to open two hotels in the Emirates and one in India.

Meanwhile, Costa, its High Street coffee chain, achieved an increase in like-for-like sales of 2%. Over the year, 296 new Costas were opened, 110 of which were overseas. Whitbread plan to continue opening more stores but at a ‘more measured pace’, focused on towns, cities and trade zones where there are no Costas or not as many as there could be. It also plans an ‘aggressive marketing campaign’ for the brand.

Whitbread’s restaurants achieved a like-for-like sales increase of 4.6%. The company took steps to compensate for food inflation by ‘re-engineering’ its menus, including offers such as 2 meals for £9 at Brewers Fayre. It now has 372 restaurants, including Beefeater, Brewers Faye, Table Table and Taybarn.

Whitbread’s total profit for the year is £90.3 million, compared to £557.1 million last year. However, last years results included David Lloyd Leisure and other businesses which Whitbread then owned. The year saw Whitbread becoming a focused hotel and restaurant business. At the start of the year period, Whitbread undertook an efficiency review, which resulted, amongst other things, in it transferring its food logistics to Kuehne & Nagel. It expects to have saved £25 million by the end of 2010/11.

05 May 2009