Whitbread confident as profits exceed forecasts

Whitebread has exceeded forecasts after posting a 13% increase in first-half profit and said its second half had started positively.

The group, which manages popular brands in hotels, restaurants and health and fitness clubs, including Premier Travel Inn, Brewers Fayre, Beefeater and Costa Coffee, announced today that profit before tax and one-off items was £99.4 million from continuing operations in the half year to the end of August.

According to analysts at Reuters, forecasts ranged from £90.3 million to £94.7 million.

In recent years, Whitbread has sold off breweries, bars and leisure clubs to concentrate on hotels, restaurants and coffee shops.

It has often been suggested that Whitbread is potential target for a leveraged buyout, partly due to its property assets, consequently its shares were hit hard when debt markets froze in August. However, they have since bounced back but were off 0.5% at 1,716 pence by early trading today.

Alan Parker, Chief Executive, said in a statement that the group’s pub restaurants were feeling some effects of a slowdown in consumer spending growth but it is confident about the outcome for the full year as the second half has started favourably.

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