Operation of hotels, restaurants and coffee shops,Whitbread Group Plc is a UK based hospitality company, managing several popular brands, including Premier Inn, Table Table, Brewers Fayre, Taybarns, Beefeater and Costa Coffee. The company�s headquarters are based in Dunstable, Bedfordshire. The company was founded as a brewery by Samuel Whitbread and Thomas Shewell in 1799 but, after a long history of brewing, the company decided in 2001 to sell all its breweries and brewing interests to Interbrew. Today the group employs over 40,000 people and serves 10 million customers every month in over 2,000 outlets across the UK.

,Final Ex-Dividend Date MAY-2011

Whitbread PLC is the UK's largest hotel and restaurant group operating market-leading businesses in budget hotels, restaurants and coffee shops. Its well-loved brands are Premier Inn, Beefeater, Brewers Fayre, Table Table, Taybarns and Costa.


Whitbread PLC employs over 40,000 people globally and serves over 11 million customers every month in over 2,000 outlets across the UK.


Whitbread has outlined five-year growth milestones (to 2015/16) to increase the number of Premier Inn UK rooms by nearly 50% to at least 65,000, add 80-100 new Restaurants and to nearly double the size of Costa with global system sales of £1.3bn and 3,500 stores worldwide.

Yes - I was spelling it out for you........ :-)

i see none of you follow this one, though it is one my long-term sipp holdings

market clearly liked this morning's numbers, and there has been a good bounce pretty much off the 200 dma

Interim Results

Good financial performance and on-plan for full-year results
· Sale of Costa to The Coca-Cola Company for £3.9 billion approved by shareholders

· UK network increased to over 74,000 rooms, with a committed pipeline of over 13,000 rooms

· Strong pipeline in Germany with around 6,000 rooms to be delivered by 2021

· Solid financial performance supported by tight cost control, maintaining strong return on capital

· On-plan to deliver full-year results from continuing operations

· Revenue increased 2.6% to £1,079 million, reflecting continued capacity addition

· Total UK accommodation sales growth of 4.8% and like-for-like accommodation sales growth of 0.2% impacted by weaker consumer demand

· Underlying profit before tax increased in-line with sales by 2.5% to £270 million, supported by tight cost control and the benefit of the ongoing efficiency programme

· Costa is now reported as a discontinued operation, statutory profit for the period increased 3.5% to £47 million

· Strong cash generation with discretionary free cash flow at £283 million

· Strong balance sheet with net debt of £881 million and committed debt facilities of £1.8 billion

· Statutory profit before tax was maintained at £257 million

· Return on capital held broadly flat at 12.4% despite pace and timing of new capacity


more.....